Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia from October 22-23 at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin to attend the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Friday.
This will be the Prime Minister’s second visit to Russia this year — he visited Moscow for a bilateral summit on July 8-9. During his visit, Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from BRICS member countries and leaders invited to Kazan.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that President Xi Jinping will attend the Kazan summit from October 22 to 24. During his visit, Xi will attend the leaders’ meeting, the expert leaders’ dialogues and other activities, and have in-depth exchanges with leaders on the current international situation, Mao Ning, a ministry spokesperson, said.
While Modi is going to have a bilateral meeting with the Russian President, all eyes are on a possible bilateral meeting between Modi and Xi on the sidelines of the summit.
Foreign Ministers and NSAs of India and China have met in the last few months to resolve the border standoff, but a breakthrough has eluded them so far. There have been some indications of progress in the talks, but there hasn’t been any resolution on the ground or at the diplomatic and political levels.
The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security’. It will provide an important platform for leaders to discuss key global issues, the MEA said. “The summit will offer a valuable opportunity to assess the progress of initiatives launched by BRICS and to identify potential areas for future collaboration,” the Ministry said.
Ahead of the summit, President Putin said that the BRICS group will generate most of the global economic growth in the coming years thanks to its size and relatively fast growth compared with that of developed Western nations.
Putin hopes to build up BRICS – the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates – as a powerful counterweight to the West in global politics and trade.
“The countries in our association are essentially the drivers of global economic growth. In the foreseeable future, BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP,” Putin told officials and businessmen at the BRICS business forum in Moscow.
“The economic growth of BRICS members will increasingly depend less on external influence or interference. This is essentially economic sovereignty,” he said.
This is a major multilateral summit for the Russian President after two-and-half years of war with Ukraine, and he is projecting it as a power moment for the Kremlin despite Western sanctions.
Putin is also keen to push the Arctic Sea route and the North-to-South corridor, linking Russia to the Gulf and Indian Ocean through the Caspian Sea and Iran. “It is the key to increasing freight transportation between the Eurasian and African continents,” he said.
