CARACAS, May 21. /TASS/. Venezuela is on its way to becoming a member of BRICS and it may be admitted to the international integration soon, President of the South American country Nicolas Maduro said.

"I hope that at the summit in Moscow after a great victory on July 28 (the day of the presidential election in the republic - TASS) Venezuela will enter the BRICS door as a permanent and full-fledged member of the integration from South America," he said in an interview broadcast by the Venezolana de Television TV channel. "We are actively working on this," Maduro added.

"Venezuela is on its way to organically joining new global powers," the president noted, adding that "BRICS is a new world, without hegemony, a new bloc of power that [former Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez dreamed of."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Maduro on February 21 that Moscow was aware of Caracas’ interest in joining BRICS, adding that Russia, as the chair of the integration, would facilitate this. Russia assumed the one-year rotating chairmanship of BRICS on January 1, 2024.

Since its inception in 2006, the BRICS has experienced two phases of expansion. In 2011, South Africa joined the original group, which included 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.