ISTANBUL 

China on Wednesday confirmed reports that President Xi Jinping will skip this month's BRICS summit, marking his first absence from the meeting of the grouping of emerging economies.

Premier Li Qiang will instead attend the 17th BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from July 5 to 8, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a live-streamed news conference in Beijing. The meeting will be held on July 6-7.

Xi has met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva twice in recent months, first during the November G20 summit in Brasilia and again in May at the China-CELAC Forum in Beijing.

The BRICS group, which initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, now has 11 members, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Vietnam recently became the 10th BRICS “partner country,” joining Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.

The partner country category was formally introduced at the 16th BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024, as part of the bloc's expansion strategy.