Advocate Mtho Xulu, Chairperson of the Trade and Investment Working Group of the South African chapter of the BRICS Business Council, has urged African member states to forge a unified front within the alliance.
Xulu said that stronger coordination is essential to extract tangible economic benefits from the expanding multilateral partnership. Speaking after a high-level consultative session on May 27 in Johannesburg, Xulu said that with three African nations now in BRICS, namely South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia, the continent has a unique opportunity to shape its trajectory.
“In Africa now we have three members. How do we then use Egypt and Ethiopia together with South Africa to amplify the African story within the BRICS conversation?” Xulu asked, noting the importance of also tapping into critical economies like the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.
The consultative session, hosted jointly by the Council’s Trade and Investment and Financial Services Working Groups, drew more than 150 participants from manufacturing, ICT, financial services, and industrial sectors.
The discussions centred on making BRICS membership deliver practical, measurable results for South African businesses rather than remaining a rhetorical talking point.
“We lament the issue of trade deficits. We lament the narrow
nature of the products that we sell into the BRICS market,” Xulu acknowledged. “We need to make sure that we extend our benefit from BRICS.”
A key focus of the talks was the development of alternative financial architecture, including local currency trade and digital payment systems, to reduce reliance on traditional Western financial infrastructure and shield emerging economies from currency volatility.
Xulu described this as “probably one of the most difficult negotiations in BRICS,” saying it was up to finance ministers and central bank governors to do the regulatory heavy lifting to make this happen.
“The session forms part of a broader constitutive process aimed at formulating a unified South African country position ahead of the September BRICS summit in India. With the summit returning to South Africa in 2028, Xulu said the country is already building toward a theme that will “Africanise the association again.”
It also follows a renewed urgency in South Africa to diversify its economic options following a trade row with the United States last year.
In keeping with this aim, South African Trade Minister Parks Tau and his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China, Minister Wang Wentao, in Beijing, signed a framework agreement in February to boost cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, new energy and multilateral relations.
“We are looking at it from a point of view to say: let us make sure that South Africans get the full tangible value of the association,”
Xulu said. “It’s about making sure that everyone, based on their relative size, gets the full value of their participation.”
