Joining Brics also meant that South Africa must use this position to craft a more vigorous trade and investment programme to ensure its voice and that of the continent is heard in the broader international platforms such as the G20 and the UN Security Council.

The three-day Brics meeting, which ended in Sanya, China, on Friday, also called on the speedy achievement of the targets for the reform of the International Monetary Fund agreed to at the recent G20 summit, and reiterated that the governing structure of the international financing institution should reflect the changes in the world economy.

In what could lead to a drastic shift in trade cooperation between the Brics group, Davies said the five countries also discussed the possibility of nations using their own currency to trade with each other. This formed part of a wide consultation meeting attended by Brics trade ministers that called for strong, open and rule-based multilateral trading systems among their countries. 

The meeting also denounced the “excessive” volatility in commodity prices, particularly those for food and energy, as posing a new risk for the ongoing recovery of the world market.

“We support the international community in strengthening cooperation to ensure stability and strong development of physical markets ... the international community should work together to increase production capacity and strengthen producer-consumer dialogue to balance supply and demand,” said Davies.

Brics countries are responsible for 20 percent of the global GDP and the group is significant as they are part of the G20, a grouping of the 20 major economies in the world. Most importantly, all Brics members are in the UN Security Council.

The five countries see this as an opportunity to work closely together on issues pertaining to peace and security and future coordination on issues under the Security Council.