BRICS: New Development Bank Authorizes Algeria’s Membership
In October, Palestine and Azerbaijan may join BRICS, an influential international group that positions itself as “a counterweight to Western hegemony at the global level”
Algeria has qualified to become a member of the New Development Bank (NDB), the financial institution of the BRICS group of countries. The decision was approved at the ninth annual meeting of the NDB Board of Governors, which was held from August 29 to 31 in Cape Town, South Africa. According to the bank’s president Dilma Rousseff, Algeria’s membership in the BRICS credit organization is “the result of a rigorous selection process that assessed the reliability of the North African country’s macroeconomic indicators.”
The NDB was established in 2015 by the five leading BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In 2021, the bank was opened to Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay as part of the international expansion process. Subsequently, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, along with Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, joined BRICS as full member countries in January 2024.
Many countries around the world have expressed a desire to join BRICS, which in the meantime has imposed a sort of moratorium on new members joining. Nevertheless, it is expected that the 16th BRICS summit scheduled in Kazan, Russia, on October 22-24, in addition to proposals and initiatives of global economic and political importance, will also decide on the expansion of this international organization, which currently controls about 30% of the world’s GDP.
In recent months, BRICS has held numerous conferences and preparatory meetings at the level of governments, parliaments, and experts on all topics of global interest, from financial and monetary policy to the fight against climate change and in this context to energy, technology, infrastructure cooperation, health, education, and culture.
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported that already at the Kazan summit, “the BRICS family could expand even further, having more than doubled its membership at the beginning of the year.” New participants, likely to be announced in autumn, could include Palestine and Azerbaijan. According to Palestinian Ambassador to Moscow Abdel Hafiz Nofal, the issue of Ramallah’s accession “was analyzed during the recent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).”
Subsequently, the issue of joining BRICS by Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic in the Caucasus, particularly rich in gas and oil, was discussed during the summit between Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
