BEIJING, August 21. /TASS/. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, collectively known as BRICS, play a major role in preserving the balance in international relations and help reach consensus on global diplomatic issues, Ana Elisa Saggioro Garcia, general coordinator and researcher at the BRICS Policy Center in Brazil, told the Xinhua news agency.

In an interview ahead of the BRICS summit starting this week, she said "BRICS members play a global role in balancing international relations" and "make efforts to increase economic and technological power, intellectual, moral and ideological capacity to achieve accord" among the world's countries, Xinhua reported. The group will also "play a particularly important role in climate change and energy issues and related technologies," and will help its members develop "public policies to protect the most vulnerable strata of society," she said. BRICS offers potential members new opportunities that are "unattainable and undesirable within the [global] capitalist system," she said.

Garcia said it will be important for BRICS, when it convenes for the summit starting on Tuesday, to consider the issue of granting membership to other countries with which it has shared interests.

The BRICS summit will be held in Johannesburg from August 22-24 under the chairmanship of South Africa. According to South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, the leaders of the five member countries will bring up the issue of expanding the organization when they meet at the summit. It was reported earlier that more than 20 countries had submitted formal applications to join the group.