BRICS Sherpas meet in Cape Town

The BRICS Sherpas and Sous Sherpas meeting gets underway in Cape Town this morning.

This will be the first official meeting on the BRICS calendar under the auspices of South Africa’s chairship which it assumed in January.

The Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Nomaindiya Mfeketo, will deliver opening remarks at the meeting.

The meeting will discuss the working arrangements for BRICS in 2018. South Africa, as the host country for the BRICS 2018 Summit, will present its chairship priorities to its partners, DIRCO said.

South Africa is scheduled to host the 10th BRICS summit from 25 � 27 July at the Sandton Convention Centre, which will see South Africa building on the BRICS programme of development and prosperity for partner countries.

The five BRICS countries account for 26 percent of the world’s landmass and are home to 43 percent of the world’s population. The bloc is composed of emerging markets and the developing world.

There has been substantive progress achieved since South Africa joined BRICS in 2011, as seen for example in the launch of the Africa Regional Centre of the New Development Bank (NDB) in South Africa.

The formation has strengthened its cooperative mechanism for institutional development, most notably witnessed in the creation of the New Development Bank and the recently launched Africa Regional Centre in Johannesburg.

In 2015, total intra-BRICS trade amounted to R3.06 trillion.

South Africa’s exports to BRICS countries marginally increased from R123 billion in 2011 to R138.2 billion in 2016, while in the same period, imports from BRICS countries also increased from R115 billion to R230 billion.

Total Intra-BRICS FDI was R554 trillion at the end of February 2016.

Source: South African Government News Agency

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