The Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Jorge Arreaza, shared a reflection this Monday about the Alliance and BRICS via Telegram.

Below is the full text:

No one doubts that the new and necessary multipolar world is emerging around the BRICS. Many countries aim to join this new type of bloc.

In our opinion, the joining of an ALBA-TCP member state to the BRICS would represent a significant contribution, both for the Bolivarian Alliance and for the BRICS. It would be a win-win relation.

What can the ALBA-TCP countries bring to the BRICS?

1. ALBA was created before the BRICS, almost 20 years ago, as part of the multipolar world project, based on values similar to those of the great alternative bloc, such as respect for sovereignty, solidarity, cooperation and economic complementarity.
2. ALBA-TCP was built on a real, tangible alternative in which human beings were placed at the center of its dynamics and the economy as a way to guarantee social rights and the happiness of the peoples. This is demonstrated by ALBA’s social policies in literacy, health care social programs (Barrio Adentro, training of doctors, Misión Milagro), assistance to concrete projects of social impact.
3. PETROCARIBE is and will be the finest expression of ALBA and of the solidarity of Commander Hugo Chávez, to turn energy into an instrument of cooperation and shared development instead of domination and profit.
4. The Bank of ALBA is a true instrument of solidarity-based development, which has paved the way for the undertaking of social, productive and infrastructure projects, according to the priorities of each country and without conditionalities.
5. The SUCRE as an exchange currency among the ALBA-TCP countries was relevant and demonstrated that it is possible to build their own financial mechanisms. Today the SUCRE is under review for its reactivation in light of the new times and technologies.
6. ALBA proposed mechanisms for fair trade and joint, complementary and non-competitive productive processes, such as the Grand National Companies, contrary to the domination of the transnational companies of capitalism. The proposal for a Peoples’ Trade Treaty (TCP in Spanish) breaks with the neoliberal patterns of asymmetric and colonialist trade.
7. The Bolivarian Alliance is currently moving forward with the innovative design of its own Economic Zone (ECOALBA), based on the potential and complementary sectors of the economies of its member countries.
8. The new ALBA-TCP Cooperation Agency will seek to finance social infrastructure and productive chain projects based on funding from both member countries and allied partners in the emerging international system.
9. Thanks to the new stage of AGROALBA, member countries and other guests from the Global South will share food production processes for the reproduction of life and not of capital.
10. In terms of communications, the Bolivarian Alliance has developed powerful alternative media such as TELESUR and is moving forward in the coordination of social networks and media to offer information from the Global South.
11. In the cultural field, ALBA-TCP is a diverse, multicultural and multiethnic pole, which vindicates the indigenous and African roots of its peoples in resistance and with undeniable rights to reparation. Its own artistic expressions are shared within the Alliance, to achieve a true union of peoples in their diversity.
12. Social organizations and movements coordinate their struggles and standards in the ALBA-TCP Council of Social Movements, with the aim of having an impact on the conformation of the multipolar world from the popular bases, raising the diverse and proud voice of the peoples of the Global South. Its proposals and actions are an integral and formal part of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.

These are some of the features making the incorporation of ALBA-TCP countries a great contribution to the consolidation and institutional development of the BRICS.

The Bolivarian Alliance has kept under custody initiatives thought by its founding leaders for the happiness and unity of all peoples and which were developed within the scope of ALBA and today are at the full availability of the BRICS and all the emerging institutions to give life to the new world that was already born as a guarantee of peace, solidarity and shared development.

ALBA is also a moral force of resistance and liberation, which has demonstrated an infinite capacity of union for life with human, ethical and anti-imperialist criteria, a few miles away from the U.S. empire itself.