MOSCOW, July 10. /TASS/. After a string of global crises, BRICS is evolving into a unique platform where the key factors of global economic development converge, Marat Zembatov, Director of the Center of Interdisciplinary Research at the Institute for Public Administration and Governance at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, stated in an interview with the TASS Analytical Center.

The expert stressed that the world must be based on multipolarity, and BRICS is the vehicle that can take it there.

At the same time, Zembatov believes that BRICS should function "not as a closed club and not as an ideological alternative to the world of previous global connectivity," but rather as "a unique platform where scale and resource base, industrial potential and political representation of the most promising of the world's growing sectors, the Global East and the Global South, intersect." He noted that BRICS's share of global GDP at purchasing power parity approached 40% in 2024, compared to just under 30% for the G7 countries.

Zembatov described the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz, which brought a series of financial, pandemic, and local military crises, as "the latest chord in the geo-economic symphony of severed traditional ties, demonstrating the vulnerability of the global market." Modeling a complete short-term shutdown of Hormuz, according to calculations by specialists at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, predicts a global oil price increase of approximately 12%, energy prices by 5.4%, and food prices by 2.75%. Furthermore, the current crisis in the Persian Gulf "carries risks of famine due to a physical shortage of fertilizers, a collapse in the currency balances of exporting countries in the region due to lost revenues, and political instability among importers because of rising gasoline and food prices."

"The emerging world of new geo-economic connectivity requires a foundation of interaction based on mutual trust. And this trust is being born before our eyes within the framework of a growing BRICS. That is precisely why we say that its time has come - the time of BRICS," Zembatov believes.

According to him, the future of BRICS largely depends on how successfully the association can "create project offices and settlement frameworks for new investment projects, as well as demand-driven and competitive insurance mechanisms." "Then investments in food reserves, energy, and digital trust infrastructure will lead BRICS to a new role in ensuring the prosperity of the global economy based on the principles of creation and good-neighborliness," the expert noted.

Russia's special role

The expert sees Russia playing a special role within the framework of an expanded BRICS: "Our country today is no longer just the fourth-largest economy: these numbers do not apply when times get tough. Russia has grown into the role of a guarantor of global economic connectivity, while remaining a space of enormous potential that combines tools for ensuring energy sovereignty and food security, access to resource bases, and a great transit potential for all friendly countries." Zembatov also cited a historical reason: "Russia never had an overseas colonial system a la Western Europe, neither in Africa, nor in South Asia, nor in Latin America. Russia never participated in the creation of overseas companies interested in the slave trade and naval control over trade routes. Therefore, Russia's interaction with the developing world is free from the subjective burden of colonial memory."