BRICS countries important force on international stage to be reckoned with: Chinese President Xi

The BRICS countries have become an important force on the international stage to be reckoned with, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday, as he called for deepening cooperation among the member states to build a closer and more results-oriented partnership to meet common challenges.

Addressing the 13th BRICS summit presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video link, Xi said that over the past 15 years, the five countries have enhanced strategic communication and political trust in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness and equality, respected each other's social system and development path, and explored sound ways for countries to interact with each other.

While seeking synergy between their development policies and drawing on their complementarities, the five countries have made solid progress in various areas of cooperation in the spirit of pragmatism, innovation and win-win cooperation, and have forged ahead on the common journey of development, Xi said.

The BRICS countries have become an important force on the international stage to be reckoned with, Xi, also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, emphasised.

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have supported multilateralism and taken part in global governance in the spirit of equity, justice, and mutual assistance, he said.

''What has happened shows that come what may, we can make smooth, solid and sustained progress in BRICS cooperation as long as we pull our minds and our efforts,'' he was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

In his speech, Xi made five proposals for practical cooperation within the BRICS bloc, which included strengthening unity.

Under the current circumstances, it is important for BRICS countries to stay resolved, strengthen unity and further enhance the quality of practical cooperation, Xi said.

His five proposals included strengthening public health cooperation in the spirit of solidarity- strengthen international cooperation on vaccines in the spirit of equitable access for all- strengthen economic cooperation in the spirit of mutual benefit- strengthen political and security cooperation in the spirit of fairness and justice- strengthen people-to-people exchanges in the spirit of mutual learning.

Xi also announced that China will donate 100 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries by the end of 2021.

China will take over as the chair of BRICS and host the 14th BRICS summit next year, Xi said, adding that Beijing looks forward to working with the BRICS partners to deepen cooperation in all areas and build a closer and more results-oriented partnership to meet common challenges and create a better future.

India is this year's chair for the five-member bloc that holds the rotating Presidency. This was the second time Prime Minister Modi chaired the BRICS summit. Earlier, he had chaired the Goa summit in 2016.

Xi also said that China will provide 100 million more COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries for free this year, state-run CGTN-TV reported.

The summit was also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro.

The theme of the summit was ''Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus.'' The summit this year coincides with the 15th anniversary of the BRICS.

The BRICS bloc brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)