ESWATINI SHOULD CONSIDER BRICS - ECONOMIST

MANZINI – “Eswatini has to consider BRICS, one way or the other, as she is indirectly in it,” says an economist.

University of Eswatini (UNESWA) Economics Lecturer Sanele Sibiya said the country was exposed to the impacts of the five economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). These countries were initially grouped as BRICS in 2001. The term was coined to describe fast-growing economies that would collectively dominate the global economy by 2050.  The BRICS were originally identified for the purposes of highlighting investment opportunities and had not been a formal intergovernmental organisation. Over the years, there has been a growing role of BRICS and countries have been invited to be part of the member States of the entity.

Carefully

Sibiya said Eswatini had to plan carefully on how to exploit the free-trade opportunities that would be brought by BRICS. He said in the long-term, BRICS was a formidable trade bloc and Eswatini needed to take up the new trade arrangements that shall emerge, given that more countries had reportedly registered their interest in joining BRICS. “We shall be forced to value markets as BRICS can bring more markets and there is also the BRICS bank, which stands to bring favourable banking rates to member States,” Sibiya said. The economist said BRICS shall improve trade and bring value production and assist in global markets. Sibiya said the country, at some point, shall be forced to value the benefits that may come with BRICS. He said there was also a possibility of Eswatini’s exports being excluded in some of the countries which shall join BRICS, as they would be getting favourable opportunities within the bloc.

Sibiya said Eswatini could be forced to value its markets and as such, it was essential to plan efficiently. This, he said, was to curb a possibility of losing existing markets while seeking new ones. A lingering factor that needs to be considered, he said, was the aid from the European Union (EU), which was in diverse sectors within Eswatini. Meanwhile, there is an ongoing BRICS Summit in South Africa, which has an African theme and is reportedly attended by many African leaders as part of an outreach programme. During the summit, according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), it is said, at least six African countries’ applications shall be considered for membership.

The ISS reported that interest in joining BRICS has surged and it quoted South Africa’s International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor as having said, while several more nations had shown interest, 23 had formally applied. These were said to be Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Vietnam.

On the other hand, this publication, in recent months, reported that Eswatini was one of the countries that had been lobbied to be part of BRICS. This was confirmed by the Russian Federation Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, during a press conference held at the Cabinet Offices, at Hospital Hill, Mbabane. Lavrov said during the private talks they had with the head of government and other Cabinet ministers, he relayed the invitation to Eswatini to be part of the group of growing economies in the world, BRICS. He made it known that if countries joined the BRICS, they would not feel any burden of restrictions that came with being part of the other global economic groups like the EU, the United States of America (USA) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). “BRICS is one of the new organisations where member States are not controlled by a particular State and have to follow its orders like it is in the case of the NATO, EU and the USA,” he said.

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