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Huawei, Alibaba, Emirates among big names expected at Modi's BRICS business speech
About 1,000 delegates will attend Friday's BRICS meetings on resilience and innovation, with opening addresses by Piyush Goyal and S Jaishankar.
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New Delhi : Global corporate honchos representing China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Huawei Technologies, Alibaba group, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, and Embraer are expected to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address at the Brics Business Forum meeting on Friday evening.
The Friday meetings are focused on — Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability — and are expected to be attended by about 1,000 foreign delegates, people aware of the development said, requesting anonymity as nature of the programme is tentative. The opening session is expected to be addressed by commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and external affairs minister S Jaishankar, they added.
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The day-long meetings would cover a range of issues spanning from agricultural security to trade, investment and digital economy before they culminate in Leaders’ session, which is expected to be addressed by Modi. Several visiting heads of the nation from Brics-plus may also attend the session, the people cited above said. Brics-plus countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and their economies account for around 26% of global trade.
A large Chinese business delegation is visiting India during this period. Prominent among them are CNPC chairman Houliang Dai, ICBC chairman Lin Liao, and China COSCO Shipping Corporation chairman Min Wan. Top business leaders from other countries include Embraer president & CEO Francisco Gomes Neto, Vale CEO Gustavo Pimenta, Naspers Ltd CEO Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, Russian Railways CEO & Chairman of the executive board Oleg Belozerov and Sberbank first deputy chairman of the executive board Alexander Vedyakhin.
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Ahead of the 18th Brics Summit (September 11-12), about 350 meetings on various tracks took place in nearly 25 cities under India’s chairship this year, they said. Goyal chaired ministerial meetings on industry last month (August 6) and trade (August 7) in Jaipur. At these meetings members reiterated their resolve to safeguard interests of the Global South and pledged to preserve special and differential treatment for developing nations in the multilateral forums.
Days before the Summit, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is holding the final meeting of the Brics Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ (FMCBG) in Mumbai on Wednesday and Thursday. The two-day meeting is crucial as participants would take forward preliminary works of the FMCBG’s first meeting that was held in Jaipur on August 12 and build consensus on key economic issues, they said.
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In her inaugural address at the first Brics FMCBG meeting, Sitharaman emphasised the importance of collective action and practical cooperation and underscored the need for Brics members to work together towards resilient, inclusive and sustainable growth.
The industry wants Brics to take leadership for its members in creating resilient supply chain at a time when some major economies are weaponising trade.
