Modi to attend BRICS summit in Brazil

Modi will meet world leaders during the summit.

Addressing a press conference here, Dinkar Khullar,secretary (West) in external affairs ministry said: "As I mentioned, in the second session which is on 16th, the Prime Minister along with other leaders will meet with South American leaders. We do not have the exact list of those who will come. The invitees of whom we understand most have accepted include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela."

"We believe that the first meeting of the Prime Minister with Heads of Government/State of South America will further strengthen our already close bilateral relations with these countries and will actually be an opportunity to reinforce them. The Prime Minister, I think both Secretary (ER) and I can confirm, has shown great interest in having a dialogue, meeting the leaders of South America," he said.

Sujata Mehta, secretary, economic relations, who is also the prime minister's "sherpa" for the meeting,  said BRICS is a tremendously important group in terms of 'its potential'.

India said issues like reforms of the UN Security Council and the BRICS development bank might be taken up in the summit.

" This has been an important element of discussion which we hope will be carried forward. There should be something perhaps in terms of an outcome, we hope, on export credit guarantees," Mehta said about the bank.

The BRICS nations comprise of  Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa.

The summit will be held in Fortaleza and Brasilia cities in Brazil.