Hon Speaker, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members of the House, diplomats, colleagues, friends and comrades, in his state of the nation address a few weeks ago, His Excellency President Jacob Zuma said:
Our vision of a better Africa in a better world will receive great impetus when we host the 5th Brics summit next month in Durban.
That meant 26 and 27 March 2013.
Today we are here, hon Speaker, in this House to do a follow-up and to share with you our thinking on Brics - the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa group - and its forthcoming 5th summit, whose theme reads: Brics and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation. This will be the first time a Brics summit is held on African soil, providing an opportune moment for the Brics countries to further their engagement and co-operation with developing countries, as envisioned in the Sanya Declaration adopted at the 3rd Brics summit in 2010, which was our first encounter with Brics or where we were received as a new member of Brics.
We envisage the core outcomes of this summit from 26 to 27 March 2013 here in South Africa as being the following: the launch of concrete measures towards the establishment of the Brics-led development bank; the establishment of the Brics business council and the Brics think-tank council; and a historic retreat with African leaders and their Brics counterparts.
The success of Brics will, first of all, depend on the effective implementation of our decisions and co-operation programmes. In this regard, we have already achieved considerable success in terms of strengthening our economic co-operation agenda. Let me also hasten to say to the hon members of the House that South Africa will remain the chair of this Brics forum for the year 2013 until the year when we hand over to Brazil. That would also mean that in the whole 12 months, South Africans should prepare to make a contribution to the action plan led by South Africa as we continue to interact with Brics member countries at political, economic and social levels.
Through intra-Brics mechanisms for economic co-operation, such as the meetings of our Foreign or International Relations, Finance and Trade Ministers, Brics countries are striving to intensify intra-Brics trade. There is significant potential for future expansion.
Our Brics Interbank Co-operation Mechanism, to which the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DBSA, is a party, has concluded various co-operation agreements, notably to promote trade in our local currencies. Key deliverables projected at the summit include the report that Finance Ministers will submit to the Brics leaders to conclude their study on the feasibility and viability of the Brics-led development bank. We look forward to a very positive announcement in this regard.
The Brics think-tank council that will be launched in Durban and supported by the Brics Academic Forum, will mobilise collectively the energy of our intelligentsia to help bring about plurality of ideas and knowledge generation in the world, and to also see the world through our own eyes and not through those of others. Through our public diplomacy, and with the Brics Cabinet Ministers who are in the interministerial committee, we are crisscrossing the country, talking to different constituencies about Brics and its significance for our country. It is the Department of International Relations and Co-operation's hope that our provinces will establish Brics desks and that institutions of higher learning will form Brics units and encourage postgraduate studies and research on Brics and individual Brics member states.
Logistical arrangements for hosting this summit are in full swing, thanks to our experience in hosting mega international meetings of this stature. I will therefore focus my attention on the strategic and policy issues. It is important to emphasise at the outset that Brics is not intended to compete with other multilateral groupings; instead, the body will seek co-operation and collaboration, as stated in the Delhi Declaration, and I quote:
We envision a future marked by global peace, economic and social progress and enlightened scientific temper. We stand ready to work with others, developed and developing countries together, on the basis of universally recognised norms of international law and multilateral decision-making, to deal with the challenges and the opportunities before the world today. Strengthened representation of emerging markets and developing countries in the institutions of global governance will enhance their effectiveness in achieving this objective.
Hon Speaker and members, South Africa is in Brics as a function of our international relations strategy that is informed by our national interests that have their pillars in, among other things, our domestic priorities, our commitment to the renewal of Africa, the promotion of South-South co- operation, and our determination to work for a better and transformed global system. We also see our relationships with strategic formations of the North as well as other bilateral political and economic relationships with like-minded partners as complementary regarding this strategy. The Brics group is a mechanism for South-South co-operation. It is one of the mini-lateralists and part of the so-called club diplomacy, which South Africa utilises globally, while upholding the centrality of the United Nations in accordance with the principle of multilateralism.
Global scenarios for the next 20 to 50 years all suggest that the traditional North-South divide will give way to a new international order, in terms of which some of the developing countries of today will be in the top five economies of the world. An HSBC Global Research study entitled "The World in 2050", from the top 30 to the top 100, has concluded that by 2050, 19 of the top 30 economies will be what we today consider as emerging. The geopolitical character of this new system that is emerging is being defined as we speak. The question is, however: Where will South Africa be in this emerging new world order and what must be our role in its definition and the determination of the international balance of forces?
This is where the significance of Brics comes in. The Brics countries are among the key drivers shaping this emerging new world order. The 2013 Human Development Report, prepared by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, concludes that, and I quote:
... by 2020, the combined economic output of the three leading developing countries alone - Brazil, China and India - will surpass the aggregate production of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
There was some celebration after the end of the Cold War that the hegemony of the traditional order was comfortably entrenched and irreversible. Some policy ideologues even spoke of what they called "the end of history". The 2008 global economic crisis has further weakened and proven that the North as the centre, because of its impact on the Eurozone and the US economies, has dropped, as opposed to key emerging economies which have not only weathered the storm, but are also driving the recovery. Our Brics membership strategy must address the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
The value Brics contributes to South Africa's interests includes already existing bilateral bases, comprising strategic and strong relations. South Africa's membership has enhanced the political component of Brics deliberations, notably regarding developments in Africa and support for the African agenda. Accordingly, our membership is aimed at the following: strengthening South Africa's political and economic relations; promoting regional integration of our neighbourhood; enhancing the African agenda; and sustainable global development.