Establishing partnership on a new industrial revolution to benefit BRICS: XI Jinping

The BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) is not only for BRICS countries but also for other emerging economies and developing countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday.

Xi delivered a speech at the BRICS Outreach Dialogue between BRICS and African leaders in the South African city of Johannesburg on Friday.

"At China's initiative, this BRICS Summit has decided to establish a partnership on new industrial revolution. This partnership is for BRICS countries and for other emerging economies and developing countries as well. We must ride the latest trend of development, fully tap into complementarity and build up synergy to realize inclusive, interconnected, and innovation-driven development," said Xi.

"This BRICS summit has sent a clear message about supporting multilateralism. It fully shows the important role of BRICS countries and other developing countries, and our strong sense of responsibility. We must work together to implement UN 2030 Agenda. North-South cooperation should remain the main channel for international development cooperation, with South-South cooperation playing a supplementary role," Xi added.

President Xi called on fellow member countries to work together to foster a favourable external trade environment while protecting financial stability and intellectual property rights. Other heads of state attending the meeting also defended free trade and the multilateral trading system.

"We see an increasing backlash against globalization. The rise of protectionism, and the shift from multilateralism to unilateral action. The BRICS trade ministers recently agreed that global trade rules should facilitate effective participation of all countries in the multilateral trading system," said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The PartNIR aims at deepening BRICS cooperation in digitalization, industrialization, innovation, inclusiveness and investment, to maximize the opportunities and address the challenges arising from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said the 10th BRICS Summit Johannesburg Declaration that BRICS issued on Thursday.

Several African leaders were invited by the host nation of South Africa to discuss ways of pursuing inclusive growth on the continent with BRICS heads of state on the back of a successful Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) summit.