Leaders of the BRICS bloc of main creating nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have agreed mechanisms for contemplating new members, South Africa’s international minister stated on Wednesday.

Agreement on enlargement paves the way in which for dozens of candidate nations to make their case for becoming a member of the grouping, which has pledged to develop into a champion of the creating “Global South”.

Enlarging BRICS has topped the agenda at a summit going down in Johannesburg, South Africa’s business capital. While all BRICS members had publicly expressed help for rising the bloc, there had been divisions among the many leaders over how a lot and the way rapidly.

“We have agreed on the matter of expansion,” Naledi Pandor stated on Ubuntu Radio, a station run by South Africa’s international ministry.

“We have a document that we’ve adopted which sets out guidelines and principles, processes for considering countries that wish to become members of BRICS…That’s very positive.”

Pandor stated the bloc’s leaders would make a extra detailed announcement on enlargement earlier than the summit concludes on Thursday.

More than 40 international locations have expressed curiosity in becoming a member of BRICS, say South African officers, and 22 – Iran, Venezuela and Algeria amongst them – have formally requested to be admitted.

(Reporting Carien du Plessis in Johanneburg and Krishn Kaushik in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Rachel Savage in Johannesburg Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)