Pakistan has applied for membership in the BRICS grouping and has requested Russia’s backing, according to the country’s envoy to Moscow, Muhammad Khalid Jamali.
Pakistan has applied to join the BRICS group of states in 2024 and is banking on Russia’s aid throughout the membership process, according to Jamali, as quoted by Russia’s official TASS news agency on Wednesday.
According to Jamali, Pakistan has already applied for membership in the BRICS–Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa–which is slated to grow next year with the admission of six new members under the Russian Presidency.
Pakistan’s bid to join the BRICS comes as the club of rising economies was due to grow by six new members under Russia’s rotational Presidency in 2024.
Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were formally inducted as new members at this year’s BRICS conference in South Africa. They will formally join during the 2024 Moscow summit.
Islamabad intends to join the group under Russia’s presidency next year, according to Jamali.
“Pakistan would like to be part of this important organisation and we are in the process of contacting member countries for extending support to Pakistan’s membership in general and the Russian Federation in particular,” the foreign minister added.
According to TASS, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stated in early October that BRICS intends to settle on a list of candidates for partner-state status ahead of the 2024 summit in Kazan.
While Pakistan may be able to bank on the support of its all-weather friend China, it remains to be seen how the other four members, Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, will react to the proposal to admit Islamabad.
The five-member bloc was founded as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) after a meeting of its leaders on the fringes of the G8 Outreach Summit in Russia in 2006, and had its inaugural summit in 2009.
With the inclusion of South Africa, it later became BRICS and evolved as a powerful organisation with the construction of its own bank, the New Development Bank (NDB), based in Shanghai.