MOSCOW/GENEVA – Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS International Center for Competition Law and Policy, tells the Tehran Times that “multipolarity” unites BRICS members.

Iran officially joined BRICS in January 2024.

Ivanov also says de-dollarization could be a milestone in the history of BRICS.
 
Following is the text of the interview:

How can BRICS achieve the goals it has set for itself? Would you please explain about the long-term goals of BRICS?

BRICS is the largest international association to date. It envisages the largest formats of interaction in all spheres of mutual interests - from economy, technological cooperation to tourism. Therefore, I will not define the goals and objectives for the entire association, but I am ready to talk about cooperation in the field of antimonopoly regulation.

How can BRICS establish a global action platform for fair market competition?

During the latest meeting held in Geneva, the Russian side brought forward the proposal that an enhanced cooperation platform be launched to institutionalize and thus further deepen the BRICS partnership towards an inclusive, diverse, and just economic order - the BRICS Global Action Platform on Fair Market Competition developed by BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre. The meeting was attended by representatives of relevant agencies of all BRICS members, including those countries that joined BRICS in January of this year.

All of them expressed support for the initiative to create such a platform. The BRICS competition authorities supported the initiative, proposed to start its development and to present concrete mechanisms for the implementation of this platform within a year, by the next BRICS competition authorities conference in Cape Town in 2025. The BRICS Centre will provide intellectual resources to facilitate the launch of the Action Platform. 

What steps are needed to create an “expert center” with the centrality of BRICS to generate knowledge and exchange knowledge?

So far, cooperation in the field of antitrust regulation has been conducted on a loosely formalized basis, relying on soft forms of cooperation and interaction between expert communities, and it will be difficult to use such a format in the enlarged BRICS, given the diversity of legal and economic systems. But Russia's chairmanship of BRICS this year, which is initiating the creation of such a center, gives a chance that the parties will be able to agree on the creation of the first joint institution for regulating the global economy, which could be an institute for antitrust policy in key markets.

According to the vision of the Russian side, the center will make it possible to develop a mechanism for coordinating positions on how to jointly influence the global economy, global markets and global value chains. This is an opportunity to develop effective approaches to influence global markets and put them into practice. The BRICS governments have already supported the idea of creating a grain exchange, and this initiative also represents an element of integration and facilitation of agreements in other sectoral areas. 

The next conference of BRICS antimonopoly authorities in 2025 will determine more precisely the timeframe for the establishment of the center.
A BRICS Global Action Platform on Fair Market Competition is planned as an inclusive and participatory format for cooperation in competition policy. The mandate follows the outstanding needs of the BRICS competition authorities and develops the UNCTAD competition mandate on a super-regional level:
Accumulation of knowledge to provide technical and analytical assistance to the competition authorities (including market screening mechanisms for mergers and cartels)
Ad hoc investigation mechanisms
Policy research and analysis
Capacity building
A forum for policy and academic discussions

Do you think BRICS can challenge Western-dominated institutions in the global marketplace of ideas?

 As the BRICS countries represent the world’s majority and strive to preserve and further develop their growing and diverse economies, they are alarmed by a persisting increase of power imbalances and structural inequalities in the global economy. Dominant players, first of all those in the Western world, that abuse their economic power undermine the fragile foundations of the interconnected globalized economic order that is supposed to rest on equality, equity, and the mutual respect of its participants.

These abuses suppress healthy competition, hinder the smooth functioning of global markets, and reduce the efficiency and resilience of the global economy. This leads to economic imbalances that directly harm the most vulnerable people in the BRICS countries. Abuse of economic power and crippling monopolization disrupt the smooth functioning of global value chains, create unnecessary bottlenecks and disparity in bargaining positions, deter both innovation and proliferation of technologies, and lead to exploitation of consumers and exclusion of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. 

Global competition agenda is based on the dominant (Western) narrative, and the BRICS academia is underrepresented in the market of ideas often due to the lack of demand for the BRICS-focused research. Addressing the current complex reality requires an effective platform for a new BRICS thinking and academic research with the aim of adding diversity and new voices to the global market of ideas.

How can BRICS members maintain healthy competition?

Without healthy competition, market economies run out of steam and lose energy. And this happens, as a rule, due to the concentration of market power "in one hand" - whether it is the result of collusion or other monopolization of markets. This power allows privileged market participants to act not in a competitive, but in a monopolistic logic, parasitizing consumers and other participants of economic relations. It cannot be said that the architects of the modern system of regulation of the world economy do not understand this.

Initially, the design of the WTO contained a universal agreement on the protection of competition in the global economy, similar to the TRIPS Agreement, which introduced uniform standards of intellectual property protection for all WTO member countries. Such uniform standards of competition protection at the world level could well balance the processes of globalization.

The BRICS countries are an interesting group of economies that are united by the fact that for a number of reasons they are not members of the "closed clubs" of the "capitalist core" countries. In many ways, they are strangers to the still dominant in international affairs: the US, EU and their closest allies. And each country is alien to this close group for different reasons and to different degrees. The grouping has many differences - economic, social, and geopolitical.

However, it is precisely because of their differences that the BRICS countries can agree on what they do not want the world economy to be. And the key word that already unites them on this issue is "multipolarity" - in other words, the diversity of formats, ways and means of organizing economic life. What the BRICS countries lack is diversity in global economic life. There are too many rigid forms imposed by the dominant group. Such a struggle for diversity is not very profitable for the dominant actors, as it reduces their monopolistic rents. But a more diverse, multi-format system of organization of the world economy seems to be important for countries that are already capable of competing at the global level, but are in a less advantageous position due to this mono-organization of the world economic system.

Does BRICS seek enlargement and de-dollarization? If so, what approaches is it taking?

This could be a milestone in the history of BRICS, an alliance of newly industrialized countries formed in 2001: according to information circulated by the Russian Embassy in Kenya, the countries currently in BRICS (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, UAE, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia) have repeatedly expressed their intention to introduce their own currency. It would be backed by gold and/or other raw materials such as silver or rare earth metals. From the point of view of BRICS states, the creation of their own currency would facilitate international trade. But above all, de-dollarization will make the Global South more independent of the much-weakened reserve currency (the US dollar) and help the emergence of a multipolar world order.