Brics meet with “friends” to forge stronger relations as the bloc attempts to grow

Senior officials from more than a dozen nations, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, convened on Friday to strengthen relations and position themselves as a counterweight to the West. They discussed stronger connections with the Brics bloc of large rising economies.

A increasing number of nations, particularly from the global South, have shown interest in joining Brics, which now comprises of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Brics was once thought of as a loose coalition of diverse rising economies, but in recent years, it has taken on a more defined form, fueled initially by China and more recently by the outbreak of the Ukraine War in February 2022.