In his address to the expanded session of the 15th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the BRICS, a group made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, Lula called for greater integration with that continent.
According to the former trade unionist, the world as a whole has declined in recent years and new paths must be found.
We will resume our global advocacy and rebuild our historic ties with developing countries. He said that prosperity is only complete when it is shared.
“While security concerns are increasingly limiting the exchange of technologies, the African Union is launching a digital transformation strategy and hundreds of start-ups (startups) and innovation centers are emerging in Africa,” he stressed.
He considered that while unilateral measures that threaten the integrity of the trade system multiply, the African continent has become the largest free trade area on the planet, with a population of 1.3 billion and a GDP of $3.4 trillion.
Lula mentioned some recent setbacks that have become major current challenges, such as food insecurity, which has returned to 2005 levels, and the erosion of democratic political processes in many countries.
He also criticized the decline in international investment in developing countries that still depend on basic products and the import of basic necessities.
During the day, Lula also met his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, whose country will be one of the six new members of the BRICS group.
“For the first time, I met Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, one of the countries that will join the BRICS from 2024,” the former labor leader wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
And he specified that “Iran was the largest importer of Brazilian products in the Middle East in 2022, with the value of the products amounting to approximately $4.3 billion, and it should remain an important trading partner for Brazil in the coming years.”
In the same way, and on the same platform, Lula said he spoke with his Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce, who confirmed that in the meeting they discussed a wide-ranging bilateral agenda.
“We are working on a wide-ranging bilateral agenda of physical, water and energy integration and mutual cooperation,” Arce said on a social network.
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