A golden opportunity for China and Brazil

Brazil is hosting, for the third time, a BRICS Summit. The summit is expected to result in pragmatic decisions, fostering cooperation among the five countries.

The meeting is taking place at a moment when the growth of the global economy is negatively affected by rising protectionism. In fact, several economies are suffering the negative consequences of the global economic uncertainty stemming from the present situation. Complementarity among BRICS countries might provide some much-needed dynamism.

The BRICS group was created as a tool to influence global governance. A precondition for being able to have such influence is to achieve a minimum degree of convergence of objectives and identify common issues, so that the five countries can act together in the same direction. This need to deepen mutual knowledge to identify common objectives has led, over time, to a great deal of dispersion of the objectives, as indicated in the various declarations following each summit. Several measures have been adopted to promote the group, but additional mechanisms should be established to intensify intra-BRICS cooperation in a number of areas.