As the night falls on the 10th BRICS Summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa has lauded the manner in which the business forum hosted at the Sandton Convention Centre was arranged, saying it was one of the most well-organised summits.
“We’ve come to the end of the BRICS Summit, which has been hugely successful. We, as South Africa, are very pleased with the way the BRICS Summit succeeded in achieving the many objectives that we had in mind,” says Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa says one of the great achievements of this summit was that 40% of the world’s population was represented in South Africa.
“Twenty six percent of the global land was represented here, if you like. And countries that were here also represented 22% of the world’s GDP and share of the world trade was represented here at 17%.”
Thirty one countries have been represented at the summit through 21 heads of states.
Minister of Tourism, Derek Hanekom has also been full of praise for some of the agreements which were struck at the summit which include the multiple-entry visas between South Africa and China.
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South Africa and China
Some of the notable results of the summit include the endorsement for the promotion of women issues; the establishment of the BRICS vaccine centre in South Africa and BRICS tourism tract.
On insinuations that the support South Africa is getting from BRICS could alienate from the United States, Ramaphosa has poured cold water on that saying, “All of us in BRICS are free countries. All of us are safeguarding our own sovereignty. We are independent countries and all of us choose whomsoever we want to associate with.”
It has been a busy week in Sandton as the BRICS countries were locked in meetings, regularly briefing the local and foreign media that have converged on Africa’s richest square mile.
