5th meeting of BRICS Industry Ministers

In News 

• Recently, India chaired the  5th meeting of BRICS Industry Ministers.
• The theme of BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus for its Chairship, this year.

More in news

• The Union  Minister of Commerce and Industry called for the New Development Bank (NDB) to expand its horizons to fund service delivery in the social infrastructure, especially for funding service delivery in the education and health sector, besides promotion of infrastructure and industrial sector.

Major Highlights of the Meeting 

• Channelizing technology: India’s efforts of channelizing technology towards good and smart governance thus increasing transparency and accountability were highlighted. 
  • They appreciated the need for adopting the emerging new technologies in a swiftly changing world and recognized this as an important tool for modernization and transformation of industry, promotion of inclusive economic growth, thus helping BRICS national economies to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Vibrant and dynamic start-up ecosystem: India has developed a vibrant and dynamic start-up ecosystem, leveraged existing platforms and digital technologies such as Aadhar and UPI payments for ensuring delivery of critical services to the last mile.
  •  Online systems like COWIN and digital vaccination certificates are being cited as success stories across the world today. 
•  Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: Ministers recognized the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic particularly in the fields of trade and industry. 
  • They complimented all the COVID warriors, doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and scientists, across all the BRICS countries, for their selfless and tireless efforts in saving our lives.
• Human resource development: They agreed on the need to build human resources in line with the changing requirements accelerated by the new emerging technology to promote training and skills development of the related workforce and businesses through workshops, seminars, and exchange programs.
• Trade environment: They reiterated their commitment to making efforts to foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory trade environment, ensure greater participation in global value chains, promote digital inclusion, assess the implications, and encourage the progressive, safe, equitable, and sustainable use of disruptive technologies for advancing growth.

About BRICS

Background of BRICS

• July 2006: The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit. 
• September 2006: Shortly afterwards, the group was formalised as BRIC during the 1st BRIC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which met on the sidelines of the UN Assembly in New York City.
• June 2009: After a series of high-level meetings, the 1st BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
• September 2010: The BRIC group was renamed as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) after South Africa was accepted as a full member at the BRIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York. 

Composition

• BRICS consists of the major emerging economies from the world, comprising 41% of the world population.
• It contributes 24% of the world GDP.
• It has a 16% share in world trade.
• The total combined area of 29.3% of the total land surface of the world.

Three pillars of intra-BRICS cooperation

• Political and Security: It aims to enhance cooperation and dialogue on issues of global and regional security, developments in the global political space for peace, security and prosperity. The priorities under this pillar are:
  • Reform of the Multilateral System
  • Counter-Terrorism Cooperation
• Economic and Financial: It aims to promote economic growth and development for mutual prosperity through the expansion of intra-BRICS cooperation in sectors such as trade, agriculture, infrastructure, small and medium enterprises, energy and finance & banking. Recognizing the advantages of using technological and digital solutions for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in BRICS countries with a special focus on:
  • Implementation of the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2020-25.
  • Operationalization of the BRICS Agriculture Research Platform.
  • Cooperation on Disaster Resilience.
  • Innovation Cooperation.
  • Digital Health and Traditional Medicine.

• Cultural and People to People:   It aims to qualitatively enrich and enhance intra-BRICS people to people contacts in cultural, academic, youth, sports, business, through regular exchanges. Exchanges among Parliamentarians, young scientists etc. are also held.

Significance of BRICS

• A platform for global issues: India along with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa actively engages on issues of global importance through BRICS. E.g.
  • Global financial and security situation, countering terrorism, climate change, sustainable development, reform of the multilateral system, reform of WTO and institutions of international governance, ways to promote Intra-BRICS cooperation including in science & technology, trade, health, information and communication technology, people-to-people exchanges.
• Drives Economic Growth: BRICS countries have been the main engines of global economic growth over the years. From inception, finance and trade have been a major area of Intra-BRICS Cooperation. 
  • The New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) are the major outcomes in this area.
• Counter-Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism Working Group in BRICS has set up subgroups to cover various aspects of countering terrorism.
  •  At the same time, BRICS has emerged as a major factor in a peaceful, prosperous and multipolar world. 
  • BRICS Leaders have been supporting India’s stand on countering terrorism and that terrorism is not acceptable in any form and manifestation. 

Challenges for BRICS

• Cooperation among Members: Whether it can manage the internal contradictions among its members while also simultaneously expanding its agenda to become a more consequential voice at the international level, will determine its success in the coming years.
• Domestic Economic Growth: The increased intra-BRICS cooperation in areas like health, science and technology, environment, finance, trade, agriculture, etc. will be difficult to sustain if the member states cannot provide the levels of domestic economic growth that ‘provides the basis for their international positions.’ 
• Containing Assertiveness of China: The rise of China and its resultant impact on the world order has raised questions about the impact of a rising power on multilateral processes.
• The negative impact of other Global Institutions: Given that BRICS countries on their own are not in a position to mount global efforts to deal with large-scale crises, paralysis at the level of other multilateral institutions negatively affects agenda formation in BRICS.
• Role of other Nations: The role of other emerging powers, their foreign policy choices in an evolving global order and response to the US-China equation will affect multilateral behaviour, including that of BRICS.

Conclusion

• The BRICS countries are “indeed different from a few developed countries in their attitude towards multilateralism and multilateral cooperation.
• The BRICS countries stress the need to observe the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and oppose exceptionalism and double standards.
• BRICS are committed to extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and oppose hegemonic bullying and zero-sum games. 
• BRICS pursue openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, and reject bloc politics and ideological confrontation.

Source: IE