No member dominates BRICS, says South Africa's finance minister

The BRICS mechanism is built on the basis of consensus and mutual respect, and no country in the organization holds a dominant position, said Enoch Godongwana, finance minister of South Africa.

Godongwana made the remarks on Thursday at a panel session titled BRICS in Expansion during the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

When asked whether China was dominating the BRICS grouping, the minister said: "There is no one dominating each other in BRICS. The institution is built on the basis that there is mutual respect. There is consensus in decision-making. Therefore, there can be no dominance."

"It's unlike the Bretton Woods institutions," Godongwana further pointed out. "The World Bank belongs to the Americans. The International Monetary Fund belongs to Europe. That is not questionable. And therefore, they have got to be dominant in those institutions. In BRICS, it's consensus."

The minister's replies drew applause from the audience.

The World Bank and the IMF were created during the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 when the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency was also settled.

BRICS is an acronym for the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which were the founding countries of the intergovernmental organization.

In August 2023, it was announced that, in a historic expansion, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Argentina will become new members of BRICS. Argentina withdrew from its planned entry into the BRICS in December 2023.

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