The upcoming fifth BRICS summit provides an opportunity to build stronger Africa-BRICS cooperation, says a senior government official of South Africa.

South Africa's accession to the BRICS group has attested the country's great potential, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's international relations and cooperation minister, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

As an African member of BRICS, South Africa can play a special role to extend BRICS cooperation to support Africa's development, she added.

South Africa is to host the fifth BRICS summit on March 26-27 in the port city of Durban. For the first time, the summit will be joined by African leaders under the theme of "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialization."

"It will give us an opportunity to strengthen the pillars that make South Africa work," she said, adding that South Africa, the biggest economy in the continent, will use the summit to showcase what it could offer in terms of trade.

The country, the minister said, will make use of its enormous mineral resources -- worth over 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars -- to boost economic cooperation with other BRICS members.

The summit also presents an strategic opportunity to extend BRICS cooperation in support of the development of the whole continent, she added.

President Jacob Zuma, along with other African leaders, has long championed infrastructure construction for the continent to boost transportation capacity and promote trade among African countries, she said.

Colls Ndlovu, with the South African Reserve Bank, also saw the great potential of BRICS-Africa partnership.

Cooperation between BRICS countries and Africa will be a boost for the African continent, said Ndlovu, citing the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, built and funded by China, as an example.

In the past decade, BRICS and Africa have stepped up their commercial and strategic engagements, he said.

According to the Standard Bank of South Africa, BRICS-Africa trade will increase from 150 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 to 530 billion dollars in 2015.

BRICS consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with the name formed by the initials of the five emerging economies. It had been known as BRIC before South Africa joined the group in 2010.

The BRICS countries make up about 42 percent of the world's total population, 20 percent of the global economic output and 15 percent of world trade.