These include the Brics Business Council, Brics Women’s Business Alliance, Brics Thinktanks Council, Brics Civil Society Forum and various political parties. Sporting events will also form part of the summit this year.
“Next month, South Africa will host the 15th Brics summit in Johannesburg. It is an opportunity and a moment which I would like the people of our country to understand fully what it means.
“We are the smallest economy of the other four countries and many people often say we punch above our weight and indeed we do, but it also goes to show the important role South Africa plays on the global stage.
“Much as we are a small population when compared to the other big Brics countries, we are seen as playing a key strategic role. Small and tiny as we are and this is due to who you are as South Africans.”
This will be the first Brics summit held in person since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.
“This summit takes place at a challenging time for the global community. Many countries, especially those with developing economies, are still recovering from the pandemic, which in many ways had a devastating ways on human health. Societies were negatively affected, economies were devastated.”
The pandemic deepened inequality and set back social developments.
“It set us, as South Africa, back in a way we don’t even begin to imagine. We lost 2-million jobs in a year. And [if] you think that creating a million jobs [can happen] in a short span of time, it does not happen like that — at most we create 350,000 jobs.”
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Ramaphosa quashes 'rumour' that Brics summit will be held virtually
Image: GCIS
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday dismissed suggestions the upcoming 15th Brics summit will be held virtually and possibly in another country after an International Criminal Court (ICC) decision to have Russian leader Vladimir Putin arrested which would apply if he sets foot in South Africa.
“All of us, as Brics leaders, and at ministerial and various institutional levels, are looking forward to having an in-person summit. There was a rumour going around that this could become an online summit. No. It’s going to be face to face, eyeball to eyeball. And it is going to happen here,” he said on Thursday.
Ramaphosa was speaking at the ANC’s progressive business forum colloquium as part of the build-up activities for the Brics political parties plus dialogue next week.
The dinner, held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, was a gathering of business leaders, ministers and ambassadors from Brics countries.
South Africa, as the chair of Brics for 2023, will host the five-member summit in August.
Ramaphosa said Brics existed not only to strengthen government-to-government relations, but also to forge stronger ties between the people of the five nations. “It is for this reason several bodies have been established to enable co-operation across the societies in the five nations.”
What to expect at the upcoming Brics political parties plus dialogue summit
These include the Brics Business Council, Brics Women’s Business Alliance, Brics Thinktanks Council, Brics Civil Society Forum and various political parties. Sporting events will also form part of the summit this year.
“Next month, South Africa will host the 15th Brics summit in Johannesburg. It is an opportunity and a moment which I would like the people of our country to understand fully what it means.
“We are the smallest economy of the other four countries and many people often say we punch above our weight and indeed we do, but it also goes to show the important role South Africa plays on the global stage.
“Much as we are a small population when compared to the other big Brics countries, we are seen as playing a key strategic role. Small and tiny as we are and this is due to who you are as South Africans.”
This will be the first Brics summit held in person since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.
“This summit takes place at a challenging time for the global community. Many countries, especially those with developing economies, are still recovering from the pandemic, which in many ways had a devastating ways on human health. Societies were negatively affected, economies were devastated.”
The pandemic deepened inequality and set back social developments.
“It set us, as South Africa, back in a way we don’t even begin to imagine. We lost 2-million jobs in a year. And [if] you think that creating a million jobs [can happen] in a short span of time, it does not happen like that — at most we create 350,000 jobs.”
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