Sri Lanka sees strategic appeal of BRICS – prime minister

The island nation believes it can boost its economy by joining the bloc, Harini Amarasuriya has told RT India

Sri Lanka sees potential BRICS membership as strategically appealing, Prime Harini Amarasuriya has told RT India in an exclusive interview.

The island nation, which is recovering from an economic and humanitarian crisis that plunged the nation into chaos in 2022, sees the bloc as a platform to spur its economic growth, Amarasuriya said in an interview aired on Thursday.

“We are a small country. If we want to meet the targets we have set for ourselves in terms of economic growth, then we need to expand our markets,” she said.

“We [Sri Lanka] need to grow beyond our borders,” Amarasuriya added. “For that, we need strong collaboration, stability in the region, cooperation in the region.”

The prime minister said BRICS is part of Sri Lanka’s “strategy of strengthening regional and global partnerships,” adding that “our foreign policy in general is about collaboration, multilateralism and strong cooperation, globally and especially regionally.”

India assumed the BRICS presidency in 2026 amid sweeping global geopolitical interventions by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

When asked whether Sri Lanka would be interested in buying Russian crude, she said, “All these discussions are at a preliminary stage. We have not set any deadlines or timelines for any of these.”

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“Each country has the freedom and the right to take sovereign decisions regarding its energy policy and requirements. Sri Lanka will also look for the best options available that it can give its people,” Amarasuriya added.

Sri Lanka’s financial and humanitarian crisis were aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, as the island nation was battered by the loss of tourism revenue.

Its economic crisis peaked in 2022, as acute shortages of fuel, food, and medicine spurred massive protests that ousted the government.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $2.9 billion four-year bailout program for the country in 2023. The IMF said in March last year that Sri Lanka had made a remarkable recovery from the crisis.

Amarasuriya’s comments linking the nation’s economic revival and its proposed aim to join BRICS come amid panic buying of petrol and diesel on the island nation after the outbreak of the war in the Middle East.

The country’s tourism industry, a major revenue earner, has been affected by the cancellation of flights from the Middle East. The sinking of an Iranian ship on Wednesday off the Sri Lankan coast is likely to impact its tourism sector further.