MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Russia expects Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the BRICS summit in Kazan, the capital city of Tatarstan, in October of his year, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"The state visit of President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin to the People's Republic of China will be the focal event of this year in bilateral relations, while in October we expect the PRC President [Xi Jinping] to attend the BRICS summit in Kazan," Lavrov told a meeting of the Foreign Ministry’s Council of the Heads of Constituent Entities to the Russian Federation.

On January 1, Russia assumed the rotating presidency of the BRICS group of nations, which currently brings together ten states. BRICS has seen two waves of expansion since it was founded in 2006. In 2011, South Africa joined the initial group, which included Brazil, Russia, India and China. In August 2023, six new members were invited to join the association at once, but Argentina declined to join at the end of December. The five new members of the group - Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia - began full-fledged work in BRICS on January 1, 2024.

The central event of Russia's presidency will be the BRICS summit in Kazan.