MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that Russia is ready to continue cooperation with its partners in the BRICS group in all fields, asserting that the strengthening of cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus is the goal that the entire international community is striving to achieve.
Addressing the 13th BRICS summit hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via a video link, Putin said that the theme that India chose for the meeting and the entire year, that is, the strengthening of cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus, is quite relevant, Russia's official TASS news agency reported.
"In fact, this is the goal that the entire international community is facing and five BRICS members play a significant and notable role in achieving this goal," the Russian president said.
Russia is ready to continue cooperation with its partners in the BRICS group in all fields, he said.
"I expect our work today to be substantive and fruitful and I would like to point out once again that Russia is ready to continue close cooperation with all BRICS members in all fields," Putin said.
The13th BRICS summit is presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries that hold the summit every year rotate the presidency.
India is this year's chair of the BRICS.
The summit was also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
The theme of the summit was "Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus."
The summit this year coincides with the 15th anniversary of the BRICS.
The BRICS brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.
This was the second time Prime Minister Modi chaired the BRICS summit.
Earlier, he had chaired the Goa summit in 2016.
China will take over as the chair of BRICS next year and host the 14th summit of the bloc in 2022.