HONG KONG, June 6. /TASS/. About 30 countries would like to join the "BRICS family," Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov said in an opinion column for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

"There are about 30 countries wanting to join the BRICS family, so we are elaborating on the modalities of a new BRICS partner country category and actively using outreach and the BRICS-plus dialogue mechanism to interact with non-BRICS partners," he wrote.

Morgulov noted that BRICS members are bolstering coordination on key global issues, including at multilateral venues like the UN, G20 and the World Trade Organization. He pointed out that cooperation on anti-terrorism, anti-corruption, anti-drug trafficking and international information security is also being boosted.

"The implementation of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2025 is being advanced by reinforcing supply chains, developing the digital economy, supporting small and medium-sized businesses, stimulating tourist flows and cooperating in transport and logistics," the envoy said.

The BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting will be held on June 10-11 in Nizhny Novgorod. Earlier, Pavel Knyazev, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large and Russia’s sous-sherpa, or under-sherpa, in charge of preparing for BRICS meetings, announced that Moscow expected around 20-25 countries, including all BRICS nations, to attend the meeting.

The BRICS group has seen two waves of expansion since its emergence in 2006. In 2011, South Africa joined the original membership, which included Brazil, Russia, India and China. In August 2023, six new members, including Argentina, were invited to join the association. Buenos Aires changed its mind in late December last year. Five new members, Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, officially joined the group on January 1, 2024.