BRICS get down to brass tacks at Business Forum

Published on 03/09/2017 - 17:29

At the BRICS Business Forum, a side event of the five-nation summit, China's Xi Jinping hailed the group's economic progress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping had to firefight the news of North Korea’s nuclear test at the BRICS summit, which opened on Sunday in Xiamen.

The subject intruded on his keynote opening speech, and he had to refer to it, but at the side event, the Business Forum, he concentrated on the progress made by the group of developing nations.

“In the past decade, the combined GDP of our five countries has grown up by 179 percent, trade by 94 percent, and urban population by 28 percent. All this has contributed significantly to stabilizing the global economy and
returning it to growth and has delivered tangible benefits to more than 3 billion people,” he said.

Among the BRICS leaders present at the forum were Brazil’s Michel Temer, and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, while Xi met Russia’s President Putin in a bilateral round of talks.

This is the ninth BRICS summit and the Business Forum lasts two days, while the summit and its record 1200 attendees work on until Tuesday. Representatives from nearly 80 Fortune 500 multinationals were also present.