The XV?BRICS?Summit is held in Johannesburg, South Africa under the theme “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.”(PHOTO:?XINHUA)

By Staff Reporters

The XV?BRICS Summit will?be held in Johannesburg, South Africa under the theme “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.”

According to Ambassador-at-Large for Asia and BRICS and South Africa's BRICS Sherpa Professor Anil Sooklal, this summit will discuss deepening the use of local currencies in trade among member countries, with a focus on topics such as the establishment of a common payment system.?

Over 40 countries?have shown interest in joining the BRICS mechanism and over 20 of them have formally submitted their applications, according to Sooklal earlier this month.

The year 2023 marks more than 20 years after the birth of the BRICS concept, and 18 years for the concept to be materialized as an international mechanism with global impact.

On June 16, 2009, the four leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) met formally in Yekaterinburg of Russia for the first BRIC Summit. In this meeting they issued a statement to establish a cooperation mechanism to discuss the international financial crisis and the reform of international financial institutions, the G20 summit process, food security, energy security, climate change as well as measures that facilitate the future development of the BRIC countries.

South Africa joined the cooperation mechanism as a member in 2011, turning the BRIC countries formally into BRICS.

In 2015, the New Development Bank (NDB) was headquartered in Shanghai, aiming to provide financial support for cooperation projects between the BRICS countries, and developing countries in general, to facilitate infrastructure construction and realize sustainable development.

To date, as the most representative outcome of BRICS cooperation, the NDB has provided more than 33 billion USD in financial support to nearly 100 infrastructure and sustainable development projects located in BRICS countries.

The share of the BRICS countries in the global economy has reached about 25 percent, and their share of total global trade has reached 18 percent. The BRICS countries have successfully promoted the reform of the world's major multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the five countries' total quota share in the IMF and voting power in the World Bank reaching about 14 percent.