Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira announced that the BRICS leaders' summit will be held on July 6 and 7 in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil holds the rotating presidency of the group this year.
The group includes major emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, in addition to other countries that have recently joined or are partners in cooperation with the bloc.
Vieira confirmed, in a video published by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, that the summit will witness the participation of leaders of member and partner countries, and will focus on strengthening economic cooperation and developing financing and trade mechanisms between countries.
He also stressed the importance of the decisions that will be taken during the summit to improve the economic and living conditions of citizens of member countries.
On its part, the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva confirmed that the Brazilian presidency of the group will seek to strengthen cooperation between countries of the South and reform multilateral institutions, with a focus on developing payment systems to facilitate trade and investment between member countries.
In conjunction with the preparations for the summit, US President Donald Trump renewed his threat to impose customs duties of up to 100% on the BRICS countries, if the group continues its efforts to end the dollar's dominance over the global financial system. Trump had issued a similar threat last November, after the group's countries discussed during their summit in Kazan, Russia, the possibility of reducing reliance on the dollar in trade transactions.
However, Eduardo Saboia, the chief Brazilian negotiator in the BRICS group, denied that there were any plans to replace the dollar, stressing that the discussion was only about using local currencies in trade exchanges and not abandoning the US currency completely.
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