South African BRICS Business Council member Elias Monage participated in
the 28th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2025), which
took place 18-21 June in Russia.
Monage took part in a panel discussion on business cooperation between South Africa and Russia. He was joined by a high-level South African ministerial panel, alongside Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources and
Environment, Alexander Kozlov, and the Chairman of the Russian side of the Russia-South Africa Business Council, Pavel Yakovlev.
The panel focused on the prospects for business and investment cooperation between Russia and South Africa, in particular the reforms the South African
government is implementing to attract foreign investors.
It also looked at the role of business councils play in achieving positive trends in economic cooperation as well as what Russia’s regions can gain from multilateral and investment cooperation with the African continent
and what Russian agricultural producers can offer South Africa.
Topics discussed included the inclusion of African countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda as part of BRICS and BRICS partner nations, respectively. Monage pointed out that South Africa welcomed the
expansion of BRICS, in particular the addition of African countries.
He also highlighted the fact that South Africa joined BRICS to advance mutual cooperation for the benefit of the global community. Furthermore, the mandate of the South African BRICS Business Council is to strengthen and promote
economic, trade, business, and investment ties between the business communities of the BRICS countries in the national and continental interest. This mandate reflects the Council’s principled position that it cannot leave
the African continent and the Global South behind.
Monage said that BRICS nations have demonstrated their
commitment to Africa’s policy priorities, in particular their
support for Africa’s Agenda 2063. Within this context, South Africa
continues to use its BRICS membership to advance the
objectives of Agenda 2063 of the African Union, including the
institutionalisation of BRICS+ trade and investment cooperation.
This has been accelerating, with the annual meeting among
ministers, high-level officials and experts, which promote BRICS
cooperation, especially in the fields of trade facilitation,
investment facilitation, trade in services, e-commerce,
intellectual property rights, and economic technological
cooperation.
He said that BRICS nations had emphasised pragmatic cooperation by arranging dozens of exhibitions, conferences, roundtables and business missions on a regular basis with a view to establishing partnerships,
initiate projects and inform partners on available business opportunities, including exploring a possible joint exhibition of BRICS countries in international trade fairs and organising annual BRICS Trade Fairs.
The BRICS business and investment circle are active in participating in those bilateral and multilateral programmes, and the BBC plays an important role in organising and coordinating those activities.
When the BRICS Business Council celebrated its 10th year anniversary in 2023, the then five BRICS Business Council chapters jointly adopted a Trade and Investment Promotion statement as a key driver around which the Council’s
programme of work and discourse for 2023 and the next ten
years (2024-2034), will pivot.
Some of the key initiatives South Africa has proposed and initiated to ensure the implementation of BRICS trade, and the economic agenda include: to establish specific private sector partnerships; to expand trade and
investment opportunities by introducing a standing calendar of complementary trade fairs, exhibitions, and business forums to attract BRICS nations’ companies and investors. This standing calendar must be a digital event platform of at least two national trade/investment events of each member state; a single source of trade and investment statistics, which
can be done in partnership with National Statistics authorities in
BRICS nations to ensure uniform tracking of trade and
investment; a report on Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) to facilitate
consultations on trade challenges that may arise in both
bilateral and multilateral contexts.
This content was produced for the SA Brics Business Council.
