The five BRICS countries should safeguard the common interests of emerging markets and developing countries and play a greater role in upholding multilateralism, enhancing anti-pandemic cooperation and boosting economic recovery, said China's BRICS Sherpa and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu on Tuesday.

Ma made the remarks while hosting the 2022 the First BRICS Sherpas' Meeting held via video conference in Beijing, China.

"As the chair of the BRICS this year, China is willing to work with all sides to facilitate the building of a more comprehensive, closer, more practical and more inclusive BRICS partnership centering on the theme of 'forming a high-quality partnership to jointly create a new era of global development' for the purpose of stronger, greener and sounder global development," he told the meeting, which was attended by the BRICS Sherpas of Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as representatives of relevant departments of China.

At present, global development is obviously lagging behind, and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is facing more challenges against the backdrop of current global development challenges, Ma said, adding that "we will make extra efforts to put development on the top of our agenda."

India was the chair last year when priorities were put on reforms of the multilateral system, counter-terrorism cooperation, sustainable development and people-to-people exchanges.

India's BRICS Sherpa Sanjay Bhattacharyya said that "last year, we saw a significant achievement that our foreign ministers brought about in terms of the document on the strengthening and reform of the multilateral systems."

"This issue of global governance, particularly the UN systems and other institutions, is extremely important. I'm happy that we shall continue to attach high importance to its continued relevance," he added.

As the pandemic persists, the group is proposing to keep cooperating on vaccine research and distribution, especially for developing countries.

"Let me mention establishing vaccine research and development center as well as the Russian initiative of integrated early warning system to prevent mass infectious diseases and some others," said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

Representatives of the countries unanimously applauded China's overall working idea and vision for the year, saying that China has identified the cooperation focal points that agree with the evolution of the international situation and the characteristics of BRICS cooperation.

On January 1, China officially took over the BRICS chairmanship, and will host a series of activities this year including the 14th BRICS Summit in June. 

The Sherpas' meeting is the first official event held in China after it took over the BRICS chairmanship, and it also served to start the political preparations for the BRICS summit. 

(With input from agencies)