Photo: AFP/Pavel Bednyakov
Eurasia/TASS
15/10/2023 19:23
"The trends are as follows: The countries of the so-called ‘golden billion’ are gradually, due to purely objective circumstances, losing their leadership despite their attempts to hold on to it," Putin said, according to TASS.
Russia’s head of state noted that production volumes are increasing in the countries of the Global South and in Asia. He recounted that GDP volumes have become greater in the BRICS countries, particularly following the group’s recent expansion, and now have "significantly exceeded the G7 countries." "The trend toward economic growth and [rising] weight of the countries of Asia and the rest of the world is continuing; that’s what is most important. Moreover, this is an objective, [irrefutable] process; there is no getting away from it," the Russian leader said.
Putin noted that the formation of a multipolar world system would follow in the wake of this shift in the economic and political center of gravity.
"The heart of the matter does not concern just the events in Ukraine, and it’s not even so much [about them]. Of course, they are serving to accelerate these changes, but the overall global trends are precisely about this, the trends toward economic development," he said.
Ukraine's top diplomat told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during talks in the city of Guangzhou on Wednesday that Kyiv was open to negotiating with Russia if Moscow was ready to do so in good faith, something Kyiv saw no evidence of currently.
The Moscow stock exchange announced on Wednesday that it will stop trading dollars and euros from Thursday, June 13. The announcement came on the same day the United States introduced a new package of sanctions against Russia.