BRICS

BRICS is an association of five major Emerging and Developing Economies (EDE's) in the world.

BRICS is acronym consisting of initials of member nations.

Following are 5 members

1. Brazil.
2. Russia.
3. India.
4. China.
5. South Africa.

The grouping was originally known as "BRIC" before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010.

The BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialised countries, but they are distinguished by their large, fast-growing economies and significant influence on regional and global affairs.

History of BRICS

The acronym was coined by Jim O’Neill a Goldman Sachs employee in a 2001 paper entitled “Building Better Global Economic BRICs”.

The acronym has come into widespread use as a symbol of the shift in global economic power away from the developed G7 economies to the developing nations.

Political dialogue between the BRIC countries began in New York in September 2006, with a meeting of the BRIC foreign ministers.

Four high-level meetings followed, including a full-scale meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on May 16, 2008.

The BRIC countries met for their first official summit on 16 June 2009, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev, Manmohan Singh, and Hu Jintao, the respective leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China, all attending.

South Africa sought membership during 2010 and the process for formal admission began as early as August 2010.

South Africa was admitted as a member nation on December 24, 2010 after being formally invited by China and the other BRIC countries to join the group.

The group was renamed BRICS to reflect the now-five-nation membership, with an “S” for South Africa appended to the acronym.

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa attended the 2011 BRICS summit in Sanya, Hainan province, China in April 2011 as a full member.

Objectives of BRICS

• The core focus of the summit was related to improving the current global economic situation and discussing how the four countries can better work together in the future, as well as a more general push to reform financial institutions.
• There was also discussion surrounding how emerging markets, such as those members of BRIC, could be better involved in global affairs in the future.
• In the aftermath of the summit the BRIC nations suggested that there was a need for a new global reserve currency that is ‘diversified, stable and predictable’.
• The statement that was released stopped short of making a direct attack on the perceived ‘dominance’ of the US dollar, something which the Russians have been critical of; however, it still led to a fall in the value of the dollar against other major currencies.

Statistics of BRICS

All five nations are G-20 members.

As of 2013, the five BRICS countries represent almost 3 billion people (approximately 41% of world population) with a combined nominal GDP of US$16.039 trillion and an estimated US$4 trillion in combined foreign reserves.

As of 2014, the BRICS nations represented 18 percent of the world economy.

Rank	Country	Population
1	China	1,354,040,000
2	India	1,210,194,422
3	Brazil	201,046,886
4	Russia	143,451,702
5	South Africa	51,770,560

Rank	Country	GDP($ bn)
1	China	8,227.0
2	Brazil	2,695.9
3	Russia	2,021.9
4	India	1,824.8
5	South Africa	384.3

Rank	Country	Household Consumer Spending
1	China	1,835.3
2	Brazil	1,266.3
3	India	737.9
4	Russia	671.6
5	South Africa	173.8

Rank	Country	Government Spending ($ bn)
1	China	2031.0
2	Brazil	846.6
3	Russia	414.0
4	India	281.0
5	South Africa	95.3

Rank	Country	GDP per capita (PPP) ($)
1	Russia	17,708
2	Brazil	13,623
3	South Africa	11,373
4	China	9,161
5	India	3,826

Rank	Country	Exports($ bn)
1	China	2021.0
2	Russia	542.5
3	India	309.1
4	Brazil	256.0
5	South Africa	101.2

Rank	Country	Imports($ bn)
1	China	1780.0
2	India	500.3
3	Russia	358.1
4	Brazil	238.8
5	South Africa	106.8

Rank	Country	Literacy rate (%)
1	Russia	99.60
2	Brazil	93.50
3	China	92.20
4	South Africa	86.40
5	India	74.04

Rank	Country	Life Expentancy(avg years)
1	Brazil	74.6
2	China	72.7
3	Russia	69.7
4	India	64.2
5	South Africa	51.2

Rank	Country	Human Development index
1	Russia	0.788
2	Brazil	0.730
3	China	0.699
4	India	0.554
5	South Africa	0.629

Developments in BRICS

• In June 2012, the BRICS nations pledged $75 billion to boost the lending power of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, this loan was conditional on IMF voting reforms.
• In March 2013, during the fifth BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, the member countries agreed to create a global financial institution which they intended to rival the western-dominated IMF and World Bank.
• After the summit, the BRICS stated that they planned to finalise the arrangements for this new development bank by 2014. However, disputes relating to burden sharing and location have slowed down the agreements.
• At the BRICS leaders meeting in St. Petersburg in September 2013, China committed $41 billion towards the pool while Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each; and South Africa $5 billion.
• China which is holder of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves (FOREX) and who has contributed the bulk of the currency pool of BRICS, wants a greater managing role. China also wants the location of the reserve in China itself.
• On 11th October 2013, Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that a decision on creating a $100 billion fund designated to steady currency markets would be taken in early 2014. The Brazilian finance minister, Guido Mantega stated that the fund would be created by March 2014. However, by April 2014, the currency reserve pool and development bank had yet to be set up, and the date was rescheduled to 2015.
• One driver for the BRICS development bank is that the existing institutions primarily benefit extra-BRICS corporations, and the political significance is notable because it allows BRICS member states "to promote their interests abroad... and can highlight the strengthening positions of countries whose opinion is frequently ignored by their developed American and European colleagues."
• In April 2014, Russian Ambassador at Large Vadim Lukov remarked that the dollar may be replaced by the ruble and other national currencies of the BRICS counties, and that "A large part of the fund goes toward saving the Euro and the national currencies of developed countries. Given that governance of the IMF is in the hands of western powers, there is little hope for assistance from the IMF in case of an emergency. That is why the currency reserve pool would come in very handy."
• In July 2014, the Governor of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the BRICS partners the establishment of a system of multilateral swaps that will allow to transfer resources to one or another country, if needed" in an article which concluded that "If the current trend continues, soon the dollar will be abandoned by most of the significant global economies and it will be kicked out of the global trade finance.