Vladimir Putin made a statement for the press and answered questions from Russian media following a two-day BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
July 27, 2018
15:40
News conference following BRICS summit.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon.
I would like to brief you on what we did during these two days and on the results of our work. First of all, I would like to remind you that BRICS developed in a natural way, which we pointed out today.
The first meeting of our group, which was smaller at the time, was held in St Petersburg in 2005, if memory serves me correctly, and brought together the leaders of China, Russia and India. The group was called RIC then, which stood for Russia, India and China. Brazil and subsequently South Africa joined our group later, which is why it is called BRICS.
Initially, our goals and tasks were very modest. We wanted to join forces, primarily in the economy, and discussed the coordination of our efforts towards attaining more ambitious goals in this vital area of activity.
As more members joined the group, it developed into a full-scale organisation with new spheres of activity and broader common interests.
One of our priorities, as we said at our previous meetings as well as at this meeting, is to fight terrorism and coordinate our activities in politics, trade and the economy in the broadest possible meaning of this word.
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