A total of 24 countries are now looking to form a strategic alliance that will challenge the US dollar’s current dominant role as the world’s reserve currency. BRICS, a group of five economically integrated nations, is said to be on the verge of enacting such a major bailout.
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the main members of the alliance. The number of countries interested in joining the alliance currently stands at 24. It was South Africa’s BRICS ambassador Anil Sukle who told Bloomberg that the list of countries interested in joining the alliance is quite long. This number is increasing day by day.
Sukle said the list includes 13 countries that have formally applied to join and an additional six countries have informally requested to be part of the alliance.
The group of newcomers includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Indonesia, two unnamed East African countries and one West African country.
BRICS was reconstituted in 2006, and the original group did not include South Africa, which joined in 2010. According to Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik, the BRICS are in the early stages of creating a new global currency that would undermine the dominance of the US dollar.