SEPANG: Malaysia's admission as a partner country into BRICS was the smoothest among the 13 nations recently added, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
"When we extended our invitation to the BRICS committee made up of eight nations, Malaysia was given the highest priority for acceptance as a partner country," he said this when officiating the DHL Express RM300mil KL Gateway facility here on Monday (Oct 28)
Anwar said that he was informed of this by his Ethiopian counterpart Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali during the latter’s two-day official visit to Malaysia last Friday.
"He (Abiy) told me that the first country to be nominated was Malaysia.
"Putin proposed and accepted our nomination which was supported by Xi Jinping from China and (Narendra) Modi from India and the other member countries Brazil, Ethiopia and South Africa," he said.
Anwar pointed out that the successful nominations as a partner country in BRICS showed that Malaysia had once again regained its pride and standing on the global stage.
Apart from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Turkiye, Uganda and Uzbekistan were also accepted as BRICS partner countries.
The successful nomination came at the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russian between Oct 22 and 24.
Russia currently chairs the bloc founded in 2009 with Brazil, India and China, with South Africa joining a year later, to be a cooperation platform for emerging economies. The bloc has since expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
On July 18, Anwar confirmed that Malaysia had submitted an application to Russia to join BRICS, which accounts for one-fifth of global trade.
