The five-nation BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are one of the important components of the new world geopolitics and economy. Created in 2006 as BRIC and South Africa joining it in 2010, these countries were wed to geo-strategize to counterbalance the global lead of the West, particularly America and European Union, in world affairs, finance, and markets. The members of the BRICS are characterized by large population, fast growing economy and great geopolitical importance in several world continents.

However, the group more recently has begun discussing expanding its membership and there is a term BRICS+ to describe a larger bloc. Some important features include that the BRICS+ Summit has attracted much attention from around the world, as more and more countries seek to change international political landscape and economic system and bring new changes in the development of relevant countries.

The result is the creation of the BRICS+ initiative at a time like no other, with increasing issues that may foster or hamper its goals. However, the first and foremost, among these is a peculiarity of world powers that this new century has seen with customers like USA, Russia and China into a state of perpetual confrontation. This relationship has turned into a trade war and technological cold war, and is also different over the Taiwan issue and the Indo-Pacific region. This reality renders BRICS+ challenging because China being the largest economy in the group tends to dictate the direction of the bloc and might make other members uncomfortable with being associated too closely with China.

The BRICS+ Summit has attracted much attention from around the world, as more and more countries seek to change international political landscape and economic system.

Russia, the other BRICS large player, has also its own concerns. After its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia is today almost completely cutoff from US- and EU-dominated western world due to sanctions. This exclusion together with ever strengthening relations with China has raised tensions with the other BRICS members, particularly India. Currently, India has a close military, and commercial relation with the United States; therefore, it is wary of siding with Russia or Iran. These conflicting interests between BRICS leading powers paint the block a strategic political risk to the unity of the coalition.

Further, the dynamic increase in the internal complexity is due to the evolution from BRICS to BRICS+. This being the case, various countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina and Iran have indicated their interest of becoming members of the BRICS framework. On the one hand, including new members would enhance the bloc’s overall geopolitical power and standing in the world economy, On the other hand, the expansion of BRICS membership may exaggerate existing cleavages. For example, Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional competitors in the Middle East, which makes it questionable whether an enlarged grouping can either regulate or contain those internal conflicts without breaking apart.

Also read: The New BRICS Currency and Payment Systems?

Nevertheless, the setting can play formidable roles for developing an alternative to the western oriented institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or even the US dollar as the world currency. Some recent summits have raised the question of creating a BRICS currency or the introduction of more national currency in mutual foreign business within the member countries. This idea is consistent with certain trends in the group’s desire for increased economic independence and protection from sanctions led by the United States, especially in view of the Russian experience of sanctions from the West.

The expansion of BRICS membership may exaggerate existing cleavages. For example, Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional competitors in the Middle East.

Yet another strategic goal is to guarantee energy security. Some of the members of the BRICS and the BRICS+ potential members themselves are or contain energy producers and consumers. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of oil and Saudi Arabia is another oil exporter country while China and India are two of the biggest importer countries of energy. The arrangement of energy suppliers and energy consumers in BRICS+ as a group allows the bloc to cooperate on issues such as the production and sale of renewable energy and investment in energy infrastructure to minimize BRICS+ exposure to the world market volatility in energy prices.

Moreover, BRICS+ intends to share major interests in fields like technology, environment, and health. As the world shifts its focus towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution innovations like artificial intelligence, 5G technology, green energy, BRICS+ provides avenue for member countries to transfer and share more of such technology. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that health cooperation matters even more than it did in the past. The BRICS nations have actively begun deploying vaccines diplomacy and an enlarged BRICS+ format could establish basis for collaborative actions in case of future pandemic or catastrophe.

There have been much expectations with the upcoming of BRICS + summit as additional members are joining the club. It means that adding some countries such as Saudi Arabia and Argentina to the BRICS+ group would not only contribute to the growth of the bloc’s economic power but also would turn it into more representative of global political and economic appetite and geography. This would give BRICS+ more credit in doing something positive towards the shifting of international organizations.