The host country of the 9th BRICS summit is:

The correct answer is A. The 9th BRICS Summit was held in Xiamen, China, in September 2017, under the theme "BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future."

The summit chairmanship rotates among the five members, and the sequence is worth knowing as a set. Brazil hosted the 6th summit (Fortaleza, 2014), Russia the 7th (Ufa, 2015), India the 8th (Goa, 2016), China the 9th (Xiamen, 2017), and South Africa the 10th (Johannesburg, 2018).

• Russia (B): Hosted the 7th summit at Ufa in 2015, not the 9th.
• Brazil (C): Hosted the 6th summit in 2014 and later the 11th in 2019.
• South Africa (D): Hosted the 10th summit in 2018, the year after Xiamen.

The core concept is BRICS as a rotating, consensus-based forum of major emerging economies. For Mains, Xiamen is a useful example of the grouping's push for reform of global economic governance and of outreach to other developing countries.

Trap: Candidates who remember the 2015 Ufa summit or the 2016 Goa summit often pick Russia or India. Always anchor the year to the summit number.