The BRICS is an informal intergovernmental association comprising five countries with major emerging national economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The instruction comes as a result of the sixth BRICS Summit, held at Fortaleza, Brazil on July 2014, where the BRICS ministers of science signed the Memorandum of understanding on STI, which provides a strategic framework for cooperation in this field.
The Memorandum is aimed at strengthening cooperation within the BRICS framework in the fields of climate change and natural disasters, food supply security and sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as equitable distribution of rights to use the intellectual activity results.
The association cooperates also in the areas of national and international security, as well as economic, financial and banking fields. In March, Russia ratified a deal establishing the BRICS New Development Bank with the stated capital of $100 billion.
The BRICS group comprises the world's most rapidly growing economies in terms of GDP. The BRICS countries taken together have a GDP of $15.44 trillion or 14.6 percent of the global GDP.
Since 2006, the BRICS has held its six summits. The BRICS' seventh summit is set be held in July 2015 in Ufa (Bashkortostan), Russia.
