Interview: BRICS is certainly part of the solution to international problems -- Brazilian expert

[Photo/CHINA DAILY]

The BRICS cooperation mechanism has made immense contributions to the development of the world, a Brazilian economist has said.

Looking at BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as a whole and their fields of collaboration with each other and with other parts of the world, there are many novelties, such as the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), as well as other great examples like the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the Eurasian Union and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), said Elias Jabbour, a Brazilian economist and professor at the School of Economics, State University of Rio de Janeiro, prior to the 14th BRICS Summit.

The world today is facing great challenges on the path to recovering international political and economic stability and these disturbances will not end anytime soon, the scholar said.

“The BRICS is certainly part of the solution to international problems. Maintaining the economic growth of its member countries is a big step towards tackling international problems,” Jabbour told People’s Daily Online.

For the forthcoming BRICS summit, the scholar expected BRICS to seek the consolidation of a consensus on multipolarity and to oppose the use of U.S. economic coercion against any countries that do not agree with the current status quo. Jabbour noted that BRICS countries should enhance mutual investment mechanisms to consolidate a BRICS market.

He also made positive comments on the joint statement released after the conclusion of the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held in May 2022, when the ministers called for the implementation of the United Nation’s (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “I believe that in all areas a great engagement of the BRICS members is possible,” Jabbour said. “China is at the forefront in the production of technologies aimed at ‘green industrialization.’ Brazil has clean energy as its largest source of energy supply and Russia is a major producer of natural gas,” he explained.

Thus, he concluded that the combination of all these attributes and a strategic political articulation will place the BRICS at the forefront of ongoing discussions on the UN’s sustainable development goals taken at the international level.

Speaking of China-Latin America ties, Jabbour believed that cooperation has been fundamental not only for regional development but also for opening up new possibilities for markets and partnerships beyond the U.S. and Europe.