Ethiopia's membership in the BRICS Plus is beneficial for the country as well as for the bloc and beyond. While Ethiopia can reinforce its aggressive economic development endeavor under its BRICS plus membership, it can also catalyze the bloc's success in its long-term goal of realizing a fair and just global economic system.
At this moment the global economic system is lopsided in that it primarily serves the Wests ambition for dominance or hegemony. The main enabler of the wests economic and subsequently political dominance is its monopoly of the trade transaction system. The absence of equivalent and competent system has put in place a system where the dominant force tends to coerce the overall relations.
It is clear to anyone that putting the fate of the whole world under the mercy of one bloc would possibly leave the future of the latter under the indirect but rigorous control of the former. This tendency has shown its harmful impact in the fact that the poor and the backwards are left with no power at global forums like the UN.
Seen from the West perspective, there is no reason to care about creating a just and fair system for the entire world. They would rather do whatever it takes to carry on this system as long as it maintains their hegemony and supremacy.
This calls for the establishment of an alternative force to ally with in a bid to take practical measures to overcome it. It is up to the subjects of their domination to find their way out of the unfair economic and political domination of the current system. Many opportunities are unfolding here and there to take advantage of and start the long journey towards a fair and just global system.
The BRICS is a new economic bloc that is formed by rapidly growing and large economies of the world; Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. After years the bloc has added new countries Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and United Arab Emirates. The group accounts for a significant proportion of the world's economy and population size.
Ethiopia's membership in the BRICS alliance is a historical opportunity both for itself as well as for the alliance and the remaining part of the world that is waiting for the alternative economic bloc that can rescue them from the unfair domination of the West.
Ethiopia is a country with 120 million people which makes it the 2nd most populous nation in sub-Saharan Africa as well as about 13th in the world. With its rapidly growing economy, it is now the fifth largest in the continent. Further more recent report indicates that these five countries, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria and Ethiopia account for about half of the GDP of the continent.
This means out of the five economic giants of the continent, three of them are already in BRICS; i.e. South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia. This makes a significant portion of the continent's economic powerhouse aligned with the thriving bloc.
In addition to this, Ethiopia plays significant political and diplomatic influence in Africa. Its membership in BRICS can leverage the bloc's interrelation with sub-Saharan Africa.
On the other hand, Ethiopia can also benefit immensely from its membership in BRICS. Despite being listed among the largest and most rapidly growing economies of the continent, Ethiopia's economy still needs a lot of support to be sustainable and score remarkable change. For instance, it needs an increasing flow of foreign direct investment in sectors like manufacturing, infrastructure, tourism, finance ... etc.
Many of the BRICS members, especially India and China are already big sources of FDI in Ethiopia. Yet BRICS can open up new opportunities to further increase the flow of FDI between the member countries.
Ethiopia needs more financing to fund its growing demand for infrastructure development as well as for the construction of basic public facilities like schooling, health service, water, clean energy, telecommunication as well as housing, among others. The financing should be free from preconditions and coercion as accustomed to by the former usual creditors of the West. Rather it must be tailored to the real needs of the people and the objective situation of the country. BRICS has the will and capacity to respond to the needs of the country.
Furthermore, the country needs to duly raise its export market opportunity to increase its foreign exchange earnings. The BRICS can avail a huge market potential for the country's major export items like agricultural products.
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The fact that Ethiopia has already started implementing a macroeconomic reform will also increase its chance of benefitting more from its membership in BRICS. For instance, the liberalization of the banking and merchandise sectors can attract potential investors from the bloc's members.
In general, to realize the BRICS goal of seeing a fair world, the members have to speed up the implementation of the new BRICS bank and payment clearance system. This is a major step that can enable them to eventually contend with the existing hegemonic or monopolistic system of the West.
Editor's Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
BY ZEKARIAS WOLDEMARIAM
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 2024
