South African president to announce new BRICS members on Thursday

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will announce the names of countries that will be invited to join the BRICS group of nations as full-fledged members after BRICS leaders complete their discussion on the issue on Thursday morning.

South Africa's BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal told TASS on Wednesday that the leaders "will tomorrow morning have a further meeting to finalize the list of countries, and thereafter there will be a press conference tomorrow morning when President Ramaphosa will formally announce the list of countries that have been agreed to by all of the BRICS countries."

"Our leaders had a discussion last night based on the recommendation of ministers," he explained. "It was quite an extensive discussion, because expansion has to be a carefully considered position, and they continued discussion today, and they have now reached consensus on expansion."

The diplomat underscored that BRICS expansion criteria had already been "finalized and adopted by consensus by our leaders."

"So that process is finalized, which has made it possible for them now to finalize countries that they [the leaders] will consider for full membership. So by tomorrow morning, that's the last meeting they will have. They will finalize the consultation on which countries they agree on, and there will be a formal announcement tomorrow morning," Sooklal said.

He added that the work on BRICS expansion criteria was actively conducted at various levels since last year.

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said earlier the leaders had eventually come to terms about accepting new members and approved a document specifying membership's principles, requirements and procedure.