ISTANBUL

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran have confirmed membership in the BRICS club of emerging economies, South Africa said on Wednesday.

The five countries and Argentina were invited to join the bloc during a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August.

“On our handover of the BRICS chair to the Russian Federation… we announce the expansion as South Africa, we had Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE confirmed as full members of BRICS,” Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor told a press conference.

She added that Argentina, however, had decided not to proceed with its application to become a full member of the bloc.

Argentina was due to join BRICS on Jan. 1. However, newly elected President Javier Milei announced on Friday that the country would not join the bloc, fulfilling his campaign promise to shift his country’s foreign policy to seek closer ties with the West.

“The BRICS summit also agreed that finance ministers of BRICS countries, as well as reserve bank governors, should consider the use of local currencies for payment between ourselves and for the development of the international platforms of payment to really redress what we regard as a rather unfair and costly international payment system, which largely uses the dollar,” Pandor said.

​​​​​​​BRICS was founded in June 2006 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum with the participation of the ministers of economy of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. It added South Africa in 2010.