- Excellencies, The theme of this year’s summit – ‘BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth’ is not only relevant, but also far-sighted.
- Significant geo-strategic changes are taking place all over the world, which will continue to impact the stability, security and growth, and BRICS will play a important role in all these three areas.
- Excellencies, This year, on the 75th anniversary of the Second World War, we pay tribute to the all the valiant soldiers whom we lost.
- More than 2.5 million brave Indian soldiers were active in this war on many fronts like Europe, Africa, and South East Asia.
- This year we are commemorating 75 years of the United Nations. India has been a strong supporter of multilateralism as UN’s founding member.
- The Indian culture treats the whole world as one family, so it was natural for us to support an institution like UN.
- Our commitment to the values of the UN has remained undeterred – India has lost the most soldiers in UN peacekeeping operations.But today the multilateral system is facing a crisis.
- Both credibility and effectiveness of global governance institutions are being questioned. The main reason for this is that these did not change with time.
- These are still rooted in the thinking and reality of a world which was seen 75 years ago. India believes that reforms are a must in the UN Security Council.
- We expect support from our BRICS partners in this matter. Apart from the UN, many other international institutions are also not functioning according to current realities.
- Institutions like WTO, IMF, WHO must also reform. Excellencies, Terrorism is the biggest menace the world is facing today.
- We must ensure that the countries that support and help terrorists are also held to account, and this problem must be dealt in a united manner.
- We are happy that the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Strategy has been finalized under the presidency of Russia.
- This is a notable achievement. And India will pursue this task further during its presidency. Excellencies, BRICS economies will play a prime role in the post-COVID global recovery.
- We have more than 42 % of the world’s population, and our countries are among the driving engines of the global economy.
- There is ample scope for scaling up mutual trade between BRICS countries. Our mutual institutions and systems – such as BRICS Inter-Bank Cooperation Mechanism, New Development Bank, Contingent Reserve Arrangement and Customs Cooperation – can also make our contribution effective in global recovery.
- In India, we have started a comprehensive reform process under the ‘Self-reliant India’ campaign.
- The campaign is rooted in the theme that a self-reliant and resilient India can be a Force Multiplier for the post-COVID economy. And can contribute strongly to global value chains.
- We proved this during COVID, when we were able to deliver essential medicines to more than 150 countries due to the capability of the Indian pharma industry.
- As I have said earlier, our vaccine production and logistics capacities are going to benefit all of mankind.
- India and South Africa have proposed an exemption from the Intellectual Property agreements relating to the COVID-19 vaccine, treatment and investigation.
- We hope that other BRICS countries will support too. During its BRICS presidency, India will work toward boosting BRICS collaboration in digital health and traditional medicine.
- In this difficult year, many initiatives were taken to enhance people-to-people contact under the Russian presidency. Such as the BRICS Film Festival, and meetings of young scientists and young diplomats. I warmly congratulate President Putin for this.
https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pms-opening-remarks-at-virtual-brics-summit-2020/?comment=disable
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