ALGIERS: Despite Algeria’s hopes, its BRICS candidacy was not selected. During from the top of a group of five people in Johannesburg, South Africa, membership criteria were established and applications from six new countries were accepted.

He These are Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and Argentina.

Since the beginning of the summer, information has been circulating confirming what the Head of State suspected when sending the Minister of Finance to Johannesburg: Algeria was not selected, because it did not meet the economic criteria.

Some Algerian economists had difficulty understanding this rejection to the point that Ethiopia was accepted into the organization even though the country “has less weight on the African economic scene, with a GDP of just over 110 billion dollars in 2022, and an annual per capita income of $1,000. .

In this context, the rejection of applications from countries such as Nigeria, Algeria, Indonesia or Vietnam which have stronger economies than Ethiopia seems incomprehensible.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave some indications regarding the selection criteria for the six new BRICS.

According to the head of Russian diplomacy, the weight, authority and position of the candidate country in the international arena are taken into account first, reports the Sputnik news agency.

Russia and China and South Africa openly supported, and from the start, Algeria’s candidacy, which was not the case for the other two Brics members, Brazil and India, who would vote against Algeria’s candidacy.

Algeria officially reacted on Thursday to the rejection of its application to join the Brics. Present at the group’s summit in Johannesburg, Minister of Finance, Laaziz Faid assured that Algeria, through its past, its political position, “its geostrategic and economic position, has a place in the Brics”.

Algeria “took note of the decision announced by the BRICS leaders, inviting six new countries to join the group as a first step, with the prospect of paving the way for other countries in the near future,” he said in a largely neutral speech.

Adding that Algeria’s economy is “diversified” and “growing thanks to creative youth and abundant natural resources”. For the Minister of Finance, these are “all factors that might create opportunities for fruitful cooperation within the group”.

At the political level, Algeria shares Brics’ views on needs to build “a just and multipolar world order based on mutual respect.

“We believe that the BRICS vision is just an extension of the vision that Algeria has maintained for decades,” he said.

Always a goal

Mr. Faid’s statement shows that Algeria has not given up on joining BRICS, despite the failure in Johannesburg. The group’s next summit will take place in Kazan, Russia.

In Algeria, there was a lot of reaction, “this is a purely economic group, while political considerations are something else. Don’t forget that Indonesia’s candidacy or Vietnam’s candidacy is also not accepted, […] we have to step back to jump better, and that is what we have to do, by sweeping away the dust that has accumulated in our “administration” and so that the bureaucratic management of economic life is banned forever,” commented one user.

On the sidelines of the state visit he made to the country from July 17 to 21, Abdelmadjid Tebboune reiterated his assurance in an interview given to Chinese television channel CCTV: “We have officially requested to join the Brics group and New Development Bank as shareholders . , with an initial contribution of $1.5 billion. »

In a recent interview with the Algerian press, the Head of State once again mentioned the possibility of Algeria joining, pointing out that it is an “economic and political power”, and stressed that his country largely meets the economic conditions required by the group. “Algeria is interested in BRICS because they are an economic and political power,” he said.

President Tebboune, who said last year that 2023 would be “crowned with Algeria joining the Brics”, finally stated in early August that entry into the group was better done “through the first stage, namely as an observer member”. emphasized: “Algeria will not force itself.”

About forty countries have requested membership or expressed interest. A sign of the increasing influence of these countries appeared on the world stageaccording to the “club of five”, which generates a quarter of the world’s wealth and unites 42% of the world’s population.