BEIJING, July 29. /TASS/. China supports Malaysia’s potential accession to BRICS as it believes that the association’s expansion will promote efforts toward a fair world order, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said.

"China welcomes the participation of a bigger number of partners in cooperation within BRICS so that we could act together to encourage the development of a fairer and more reasonable international order," he said, commenting on Malaysia’s application to joining BRICS.

According to the Chinese diplomat, BRICS’ expansion "meets the spirit of the time and is in the interests of all states." "It also gives a strong impetus to the multipolarity of the world and democratization of international relations," he stressed.

He noted that more and more developing countries have been demonstrating interest to the association in recent time. "They associate themselves with BRICS and hop to join it," Lin stressed.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said earlier that his country had sent an application for joining BRICS to Russia, as a current chairman of the association.

Established in 2006, the BRIC group was made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2011, South Africa joined the group, adding the "S" to the acronym. Now it has ten members after six new countries, including Argentina, were invited to join the association in August 2023, but Argentina refused from joining BRICS in late December, while the other five nations, namely Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia, became full-fledged members of BRICS from January 1, 2024.

Russia took over the BRICS’ year-long presidency on January 1, 2024. Russia’s presidency features more than 250 various events, with a BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024 being the central one.