XIAMEN (CHINA), September 3: The 9th annual BRICS Summit is all set to begin from Sunday in coastal Xiamen city of China with the inauguration of the BRICS Business Forum by Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

The theme of the forum for this year is “Deepening the BRICS partnership and opening-up a brighter future” and Chinese President Xi, in the capacity of the chair of this year's BRICS summit, is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech in the opening ceremony of the forum. 

Leaders of the BRICS countries-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa-will attend the opening ceremony, according to Jiang Zengwei, director of the organizing committee of the BRICS Business Forum 2017 and chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. 

BRICS is the association of the five emerging economies of the world and has been organizing the annual summit since 2009. China is designated the rotating presidency for 2017 and is the host of this year's summit.  

Apart from the leaders, over 1,200 representatives from enterprises of the BRICS countries and other five emerging developing countries including Egypt, Guinea, Mexico, Tajikistan and Thailand are going to attend various sessions under the forum. 
The forum which will begin from Sunday afternoon is comprised of opening ceremony, plenary meeting and closing ceremony. 

Promotion of connectivity between the BRICS countries and the neighboring countries in the fields of aviation, railways, energy, information, electronic commerce and new economy is one of the major agenda to be discussed in the forum, informed Jiang. 
“Connectivity between BRICS countries and the neighboring countries is also a prerequisite for BRICS countries to strengthen trade and investment cooperation and enhance the efficiency and benefits of enterprise cooperation.  So, this forum will focus on forming a development strategy between BRICS countries and the business communities for promotion of a comprehensive and multi-level connection between the neighboring countries of the five major emerging economies,” he added. 

Apart from the issue of connectivity, the business forum will also carry out discussion on promoting trade and investment, strengthening financial cooperation, deepening interconnection and developing blue economy, and putting forward a large number of policy recommendations, such as strong pertinence and high gold content, releasing positive signals to promote the big market of trade and investment in the BRICS countries, large circulation of money and finance, and provide more decision-making reference for deepening the BRICS partnership.

Though the business forum will be inaugurated on Sunday, the BRICS Summit will be inaugurated on Monday afternoon at Xiamen International Conference Center. 

Chinese President Xi will hold a meeting with all the four BRICS leaders including Indian Prime Minister and presidents of Russia, South Africa and Brazil and discuss on deepening economic cooperation, promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges and enhancing institutional capacity for effective trade and other cooperation on bilateral as well as multilateral levels and issue the Xiamen Leaders' Declaration. 

Similarly, leaders from five other countries-Egypt, Guinea, Mexico, Tajikistan and Thailand, will also attend the Dialogue of Emerging Markets and Developing Countries on Tuesday chaired by President Xi, on the last day of the summit. China has invited leaders of five other countries as part of its plan to go beyond the BRICS countries and expand the scope of BRICS to BRICS Plus. 

After that, President Xi will issue a presidential statement, marking the end of the summit.

 
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