section_path: History/2024 expansion
section_name: 2024 expansion
paragraph_text: 2024 expansion
  
  In August 2023, at the 15th BRICS summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that 6 emerging market group countries (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) had been invited to join the bloc. Full membership was scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2024.
  
  However, the Argentine general election in November 2023 led to a change in president to Javier Milei, who had committed to withdraw the country's membership application. On 30 November 2023, incoming Foreign Minister of Argentina Diana Mondino confirmed that Argentina would not join the BRICS. On 29 December 2023 the Government of Argentina sent a letter to all BRICS leaders to officially announce its withdrawal from the application process.
  
  By January 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates joined the bloc making BRICS membership grow from five to nine countries, while Saudi Arabia delayed its membership. Saudi Arabia did not join BRICS at the start of 2024 as had been planned, and it announced in mid-January that it was still considering the matter. As of April 2024, the matter is still under consideration. The organizers touted the expansion as part of a plan to build a competing multipolar world order that uses Global South countries to challenge and compete against the western-dominated world order. China Daily used the expansion to claim that more developing countries were interested in joining BRICS.
  
  On 24 October 2024, an additional 13 countries, namely Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, were invited to participate as "partner countries". The partner status would allow these countries to engage with and benefit from BRICS initiatives. It is unclear whether the countries in this tier have received official membership invitations.