Annual BRICS business forum kicks off

ENZO AMUELE
The annual BRICS business Forum officially opened on 22 June 2022, with most countries suffering economically, the BRICS mechanism is an important cooperation platform for emerging markets and developing countries.
The forum was held in an online plus offline format in Beijing, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended and addressed the opening ceremony.
About 1,000 economic and trade ministers, envoys to China and representatives from the business community were present at the ceremony.
BRICS business Forum countries, which is Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are well known members for their significant influence on regional affairs.
President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping in his keynote address says that the world is facing drastic changes and a pandemic both unseen in a century.
"Various security challenges keep emerging, the world economy still faces strong headwinds on its path toward recovery and global development has suffered major setbacks," says Xi.
Xi called on embracing solidarity and coordination and jointly maintain world peace and stability.
"We in the international community should reject zero-sum games and jointly oppose hegemonism and power politics," he said.
Xi further added that countries should build a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, fairness, and justice and win-win cooperation.
"We should be clear that we are a community in which all countries share a common stake, and we should see that the light of peace will reach all corners of the world," says president Xi.
According to Xi almost 1.2 billion people in nearly 70 countries are confronted with COVID-19, food, energy and debt crisis and what has been achieved in decades of global poverty reduction efforts could be lost.
Development
He added that development holds the key to solving various difficult problems and delivering better lives to the people, and therefore countries should reach out to each other and jointly promote sustainable global development.
He called on the deepening of cooperation to better safeguard food and energy security.
"We should stay committed to openness and inclusiveness, eliminate all barriers to the development of productivity, and steer globalisation in the right direction," he says.
Xi emphasised on the importance to tide over difficulties together and jointly pursue a win-win cooperation.
“At present, some important industrial and supply chains are suffering from deliberate disruptions, commodity prices remain high and are fluctuating, global inflation keeps rising, the international financial market is in turmoil and global economic recovery is losing steam.
People have a reason to be concerned that the world economy might slip into a crisis,” he said.
He concluded that at this critical juncture, tiding over difficulties and pursuing cooperation is the only way to forestall an economic crisis.