Lavrov: BRICS growth rates outpace those of G7 for several years

The global arena is undergoing a transformation, and today, multipolarity determines the path of human development. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated this in an interview with BRICS TV on the eve of Diplomats' Day, celebrated in Russia on February 10.

The United States, which for many years was the engine of the global economy and the regulator of global finance, used the role of the dollar to strengthen its dominant position. However, it is already objectively losing its economic influence and weight in the global economy. "At the same time, countries like the People's Republic of China, India, and Brazil are rising. There are very interesting processes on the African continent related to the fact that Africans increasingly want to stop exporting their natural resources and instead build their own industries, just as the Soviet Union began to help them do," the Foreign Minister stated.

Centers of rapid economic growth, centers of power, centers of financial influence, and political influence have emerged. The world is being reshaped, and this is happening through competition.

"The West doesn't want to give up its once-dominant positions. Moreover, with the arrival of the Trump administration, this struggle to suppress competitors, if you will, has become especially obvious, especially open," says Sergey Lavrov. "In fact, the administration in Washington under Donald Trump doesn't hide these ambitions: we must dominate the energy sector, we will restrict competitors. Utterly unfair methods are being used against us, too. They are banning the work of Russian oil companies like Lukoil and Rosneft, and are attempting to control our trade, our investment cooperation, and military-technical ties with our largest strategic partners, such as India, for example, and other BRICS members."

In other words, a battle is underway to preserve the old world order, which was based on the role of the dollar, on the rules the West devised and implemented in organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.

"And when new growth centers began to achieve much more significant economic development results and significantly higher growth rates based on these very rules (and we are seeing this across the BRICS countries), the West began looking for ways to prevent such a transition," the Russian Foreign Minister noted. "But this is impossible because the process is objective. The BRICS countries' growth rates have been exceeding their growth rates for several years now, and, most importantly, their gross domestic product, in terms of purchasing power parity, significantly exceeds the gross domestic product of the G7 countries combined."

The G7 (the "Group of Seven") is an informal international club uniting the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, and Japan.

"In a situation where the West is losing its hegemony but continues to cling to the institutions created to ensure this hegemony—institutions that, by definition, can no longer reflect the real state of affairs and the fair nature of relations at the international level—the creation of new structures that will serve international economic, investment, trade, and transport ties is inevitable," Sergei Lavrov emphasized.