BRICS Business Forum Held in Moscow

The BRICS Business Forum was held in Moscow on 17–18 October in the lead-up to the BRICS Summit in Kazan.

The BRICS Business Forum brought together over a thousand business community representatives, heads of companies, business associations and unions, and chambers of commerce and industry from across BRICS.

The highlight of the event was the plenary session, which Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed, welcoming participants and underlining Russia’s efforts as current Chair of BRICS to integrate new member countries into cooperation in every way possible.

“BRICS is already a major global economic player, and there can be no doubt that this role will only increase. In fact, BRICS member states are driving global economic growth and will generate the bulk of global GDP growth for the foreseeable future,” Vladimir Putin said.

The plenary session was chaired by Head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chairman of the BRICS Business Council in 2024 Sergey Katyrin, who spoke at length about priority areas of cooperation as part of Russia’s Chairship of BRICS, which were the focus of the Business Council’s efforts this year.

Attention was drawn to how important strengthening transport and logistics, developing international transport corridors and modern intermodal logistics solutions, and creating a ‘seamless’ transport infrastructure were to economic cooperation within BRICS. A number of joint projects are currently under development in this area, the most notable of which is the International North–South Transport Corridor.

The second group of priority issues includes a sustainable system for financial settlements and payment services, a BRICS credit rating mechanism, and cooperation in the insurance market. Much attention within BRICS is being focused on the development of new, more inclusive international settlement mechanisms capable of providing everyone involved with greater stability, independence, and security.

The third priority area is the development of the digital economy. Katyrin spoke of the necessity of creating BRICS own digital institutions to effect a socio-economic transformation through measures to introduce advanced digital technologies in production, transport and logistics, and other sectors of the economy.

Plenary sessions were held as part of the programme of events and focused on strengthening cooperation for sustainable economic development and international trade. The following panel sessions were held during the Forum: ‘BRICS Financial and Investment Cooperation. Challenges and Prospects’, ‘International Trade and Logistics within BRICS’, ‘Developing the Agribusiness and Strengthening Food Security within BRICS’, and ‘Sustainable Energy Transition and the Role of Technological Cooperation in the BRICS ESG Agenda’.

The Forum also hosted an award ceremony for the winners of the BRICS Solutions Awards and the BRICS Women’s Startups Contest.

The Roscongress Foundation manages the events of Russia’s BRICS Chairship.