Benefits of Indonesia Becoming a BRICS Member

After a long time of floating, Indonesia has finally officially become a full member of BRICS─a bloc of economic cooperation of non-Western countries that has a vision to realize a balanced world economic order, centered on South-South cooperation, and certainly fair. BRICS itself is an acronym or abbreviation of Brazil, Russia, India, China─they were the founders of this bloc in 2009 and in 2010, South Africa became a member so that the name BRICS was then officially used as the name of the economic cooperation bloc of its member countries. In terms of membership, starting in 2024, BRICS gained additional members. Countries like Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates also became full members of BRICS followed by Indonesia on January 6, 2025.

Source: AFP

With Indonesia's status as a full member of BRICS, of course Indonesia gets a myriad of positive benefits that Indonesia can actually utilize to achieve national interests. At least, Indonesia now has the freedom to explore cooperation, partnerships in the fields of economy, business, development with fellow BRICS member countries. For example, conducting export-import activities, buying and selling (commerce) with an agreed volume using non-US dollar local currencies. Indonesia can attract foreign investment for national development projects such as food self-sufficiency programs, the capital city of the archipelago, energy transition, downstream mining industry, labor-intensive, electric vehicle ecosystem development, and so on. 

The benefits and advantages of full membership status in BRICS must be used by Indonesia for the greatest national interest. In this way, we hope that Indonesia's economy can grow above six percent in the future, thankfully it can reach eight percent. Hopefully!