Brazil announces Nigeria as BRICS partner
Currently holding the BRICS’ rotating presidency, Brazil has announced Nigeria as the group's newest partner. With this inclusion, the bloc now counts nine partner countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Nigeria, according to a statement from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued last Friday (Jan. 17).
The statement highlighted that “Nigeria’s interests align with those of the other BRICS members, as it actively works to strengthen cooperation within the Global South and to advocate for reforms in global governance—issues that are priorities for Brazil’s current presidency.”
Nigeria ranks among the top 30 countries by gross domestic product and boasts abundant natural resources, including oil and natural gas. Since the early 1970s, Nigeria has been a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel that sets the value of this commodity on the international market.
BRICS
The name BRICS derives from the acronym “BRIC,” coined by British economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to refer to the four leading emerging economies at the time: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. A decade later, South Africa joined the group, adding the “S” to the original acronym.
Alongside the five members, the group has included additional countries with the same status since August 2023: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran.
On January 6, Brazil announced that Indonesia would join BRICS as a full member. A meeting of BRICS members and partners is scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro in July.
