President Cyril Ramaphosa, during an address to the BRICS Business Forum Leaders' Dialogue, held in India this week, called for the bloc to direct investment towards manufacturing and beneficiation, industrial technologies, energy systems, infrastructure and logistics.

Africa must not only supply the minerals on which the next generation of industries depends, while value addition and manufacturing take place elsewhere.

“If we are to change where value is created, we must also change where investment is directed. Companies must invest not only to access markets, but also to establish production facilities and develop local capabilities,” he said.

BRICS countries were at an inflection point. With the global economy being reshaped, trade patterns shifting, technological advances accelerating and climate pressures increasing, countries and companies must reconsider where they source, produce and invest.

For the BRICS bloc, this was an opportunity to shape a more resilient, diversified and inclusive economic future for the Global South, Ramaphosa said.

Developing economies have participated in global value chains mainly as suppliers of raw commodities. Value creation, technology and higher-value manufacturing remained concentrated elsewhere.

“We must not reproduce that pattern within the expanded BRICS. Our ambition must extend beyond increasing intra-BRICS trade to deepening the productive relationships between our economies.”

BRICS must be a platform through which investment and trade reshape existing economic patterns and transform the destinies of its countries and peoples, said Ramaphosa.

He called on BRICS countries to turn the ambitions of the bloc into commercial relationships and productive partnerships.

The work of the BRICS Business Council and the Working Groups was essential to turning the ambitions of BRICS into meaningful economic cooperation, he added.

“The question is not whether there is potential, but whether we have the ambition, the instruments and the partnerships to convert this potential into economic value for our people. Our shared task is to translate the ideas, recommendations and partnerships developed through the council into tangible economic growth and development.

“Our economies have confronted profound challenges [since the formation of the BRICS Business Council in 2013], yet we have also shown that adversity can create opportunity. Resilience is not simply the capacity to withstand disruption. It is the capacity to transform disruption into new capabilities and partnerships,” he said.