The BRICS group of emerging economies has invited six nations to join the informal organization, Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, which organized this year’s summit, said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

They are Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who will join a group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa after submitting their respective bids.

Argentina’s candidacy was strongly supported by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as all BRICS members said they were in favor of expanding the bloc, but there were differences among them over how quickly this should happen and how many new states would be accepted in the first wave.

Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement came after the BRICS countries earlier announced an agreement in principle to create new mechanisms to expand the informal organization of developing economies.

“We have reached an agreement on the issue of enlargement,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told Ubuntu Radio, a radio station run by his ministry, after BRICS leaders met for a three-day summit in Johannesburg.

“We have a document that we have adopted that sets out the guiding principles and principles, the processes of consideration of countries that want to become BRICS members… This is very good,” he said.

BRICS expansion, a blow to American foreign policy

BRICS member countries have very different economies in size and organization, and their heads of state often seem to share few common foreign policy goals, making consensus-based decision-making difficult.

China’s economy, for example, is more than 40 times larger than that of South Africa, Africa’s most developed country.

The addition of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, traditional allies of the United States in the Persian Gulf region, is already seen as a blow to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy as he tries to counter the international influence of China and Russia.

But relations between Washington and Riyadh have cooled sharply since last year after the Saudi government decided not to back US calls to increase global oil production to help reduce inflationary pressures facing countries around the world.