MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. Russia considers developing alternative payment platforms to Western ones an important goal of its BRICS chairmanship, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with radio stations Sputnik, Govorit Moskva, and Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"One of the goals is the assignment from last year's [BRICS] summit to the finance ministers, as well as the central banks, to prepare proposals on alternative payment platforms," Lavrov said.
"This will be very important in order to secure economic ties, economic prospects, these prospects are very solid, there are many plans, from the arbitrariness of the West, which with its own hands is destroying trust in the global economic system it once created for the supposed benefit of all humanity and finance," he said.
In addition, Lavrov said that 250 events will be held within the BRICS framework to guarantee a "smooth entry of new members into the team." "The number of members has doubled and BRICS has already developed traditions, procedures of understanding, including a culture of consensus, mutual support, and a lot of structures that work over the long years of the existence. So, these new members will not fit in not only in ministerial and summit events, but also at industry meetings relating to information technology, agriculture, and banking," he added.
The association currently has ten states. Since its inception in 2006, the BRICS has experienced two phases of expansion. In 2011, South Africa joined the original group, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Argentina was one of six new members invited to join the association in August 2023, but it declined at the end of December. On January 1, 2024, five new members of the association began full-time work in BRICS - Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia.