MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Participants of the 7th BRICS Media summit will discuss various aspects of international journalistic work in the conditions of rapid technological development, and adopt a final declaration on Sunday.

The international forum is organized by the TASS news agency, which marked its 120th anniversary on September 1. The event’s Sunday program includes a session, headlined ‘BRICS Media: Technological Transformation on the Path to a New World.’ The discussion will be moderated by Zhou Xiaozheng, who heads the foreign news service of China’s Xinhua news agency.

The event will be attended by heads of media outlets and government officials from Venezuela, India, Iran, Russia and Switzerland.

The delegates will also sum up the results of their two-day work and adopt the final declaration of the BRICS Media Summit.

Global attention

TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov said, opening the 7th BRICS Media Summit that nowadays, BRICS is a real force with political, economic and humanitarian dimensions. That said, the leaders of member countries, much like the leaders of these countries’ media outlets, need to coordinate their actions in order to build a new and fair world order.

TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman said the broad representation among the event’s participants highlights its importance. In his words, the event attracted attention from major international organizations, including the United Nations, which is following its work with interest.

In his video address to the summit’s participants, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said media outlets from the BRICS member states are intensifying information exchange. In his words, the role of the media in the development of transnational interaction and trust between nations is invaluable. He found it rewarding that the summit is also attended by representatives from other countries of the Global South in addition to BRICS members.

New format

The BRICS Media Summit is held in Moscow between September 13 and 17, bringing together heads and leading specialists from more than 60 media outlets representing 45 countries.

For the first time ever, the Media Summit is held as a new format of the BRICS Media Forum - a non-governmental non-commercial platform for dialogue among the leading media of the BRICS member countries.

The BRICS Media Forum was founded in 2015, on Xinhua’s initiative and has since been organized annually by the country that holds the rotating BRICS presidency. Russia assumed the presidency on January 1, 2024. All BRICS events in Russia are organized by the Roscongress foundation.

About BRICS

BRICS is an informal international association, co-founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China on Moscow’s initiative in 2006. Before the accession of South Africa in 2011 the group was known as BRIC. The acronym BRICS is derived from the names of the association’s member countries in English.

At the first summit in Yekaterinburg in June 2009, the group’s goal was defined as "the development of consistent, active, pragmatic and open dialog and cooperation between countries." Later, principles such as as non-bloc character and non-directedness against third parties were agreed upon.

To date, more than 20 countries have applied for membership in the organization, and some of them - namely Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia - joined the group on January 1, 2024. A number of other states have officially expressed their interest in becoming a member.

The ten BRICS+ countries account for 46% of the global population and around 30% of the global economy. The group has no permanent headquarters or secretariat. General coordination of its activities is carried out by the country that holds the rotating presidency in the group.