by Marwa Yahya

CAIRO, June 16 (Xinhua) — More countries are showing interest in joining BRICS, demonstrating their confidence in the group’s capabilities to provide real developmental opportunities, Egyptian experts said.

On Wednesday, Russian Ambassador to Egypt Georgy Borisenko confirmed in an interview with Russian News Agency TASS that Cairo has submitted its application to join BRICS.

On Thursday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, called for an acceleration of Algeria’s accession process to the bloc, Russian news agency Sputnik reported.

Also on Thursday, Syrian Finance Minister Kanaan Yaghi told Sputnik that Damascus intends to apply to join BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

On May 10, Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of International Relations and Cooperation, said many countries have shown interest to join BRICS. According to media reports, those countries include Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Argentina, and Indonesia.

BRICS is an acronym of five major emerging market economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, whose leadership holds an annual summit since 2009 to discuss economic cooperation and political coordination. This year’s summit will be hosted by South Africa in August.

Nourhan el-Sheikh, a professor of international relations at Cairo University, said BRICS is one of the most attractive international blocs to many countries.

“It presents equitable developmental opportunities to its members and has the ability to offset the negative influence of other international institutions that have drowned many countries into debts and exhausted others with tough conditions,” el-Sheikh told Xinhua.

Waleed Gaballah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University, said that BRICS has an international weight and a promising future in trade exchange and international cooperation.

Meanwhile, el-Sheikh said she has observed a certain arrogance and prejudice on the part of Western countries when they offer loans with political and economic conditions amid rising unilateralism and protectionism.

In comparison, BRICS is a very important mechanism that respects the special developmental experience of each country, she said.

The political expert said that BRICS provides development tools based on partnership and joint growth, against the Western model that pursues its own interests while ignoring those of developing countries.

El-Sheikh said BRICS doesn’t enforce a particular growth model or path, but rather leaves it up to each country to make its own choice in light of its special characteristics.

BRICS will help to diversify those countries’ partnerships and draw a big strategic balance in their policies, according to the political expert.

She lauded the BRICS suggestions of trading with local currencies, asserting that the U.S. dollar dominance is jeopardizing the world’s economies as the United States has used its currency as “a tool for political pressure.”

“BRICS is a significant step for breaking the U.S. dollar hegemony,” she said.