Photo of BRICS leaders courtesy of Wikipedia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

In a wide-ranging interview with RIA Novosti, the Russian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sergey Kozlov, noted that the Kingdom has expressed increasing interest in joining the BRICS alliance of the world’s five major developing economies, as well as the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO).

Accounting for more than 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of its GDP, the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have been working to develop mechanisms to aid trade between them, including methods of settlement which do not require the use of US dollars. The Shanghai Cooperative Organization meanwhile, includes Russia and India, as well as the world’s second largest economy, China.

Kozlov told RIA Novosti, “As part of the diversification of the kingdom’s foreign policy, Saudi Arabia is keen to join such international associations as the SCO and BRICS.”

The ambassador noted that right now there are active discussions regarding the Gulf nation joining the SCO, while the Kingdom’s entry into BRICS is currently being considered.

Kozlov said, “In general, the willingness of [our] Saudi partners to become an integrated part of these multilateral organizations, primarily the SCO, seems to have a good prospect.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had noted earlier in the year that the BRICS alliance was fielding interest from “more than a dozen” nations who were interested in joining it.

According to reports, BRICS has already been approached by Algeria, Argentina, and Iran, as Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay have already joined its New Development Bank. China is reportedly actively supporting the accession of Argentina, according to numerous sources.

BRICS is also reported to be in the early stages of discussions with Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, the UAE, Venezuela and Zimbabwe over their accession.