BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies

Short history
1. 1980s – 1990s
  1. ‘original’ BRIC agreement from the late 1990s
2. 2000s
  1. O’Neill advocated for the reform of the G7 to include Brazil, Russia, India and China.
  2. 2006 the foreign ministers of the initial four BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) met in New York City to begin a series of high-level meetings.
  3. The global recession of 2008/9
  4. June 16, 2009 The summit focussed on improving the global economic situation and reforming institutions in ways that better incorporated the developing world
  5. the BRIC nations announced the need for a new global reserve currency
3. 2010s
  1. The emergence of the BRICS
  2. 2011 - the emergence BRICS Forum
  3. 2013 - he member countries agreed to create a global financial institution that would rival the western-dominated IMF and World Bank
  4. 2014 - The communiqué ‘noted with concern, the recent media statement on the forthcoming G20 Summit to be held in Brisbane in November 2014
  5. July 2014 - RICS signed the long-anticipated document to create the US$100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another US$100 billion.
Economic Dynamics
1. Size of economies
  1. In 2014 (just over 10 years) their collective share of the global economy has more than doubled
  2. 2012: BRICS have 40 percent of the world's population, 25 percent of the world's landmass, and control some 43% percent of global foreign exchange reserves
  3. China`s GDP is 58% of the BRICS total
2. Growth trajectories
  1. Cameron: “China’s share of BRIC output is now around 61 per cent – up from 42 per cent in 1990”
  2. Cameron: “The story, has been of the rise of the two Asian giants and especially of China”
  3. De Castro: “the BRICS have already changed the world economy through ‘the reallocation of global economic activities, especially global consumption to emerging and developing countries, and hence import/export destination shifts”
3. Structure of economies
  1. Brazil
    1. the sixth-biggest economy in the world
    2. Brazil is the steadiest of the BRICs.
    3. Brazil is a full-blooded democracy
    4. Brazil has no serious disputes with its neighbours
  2. Russia
    1. It is a country, after all, of nearly 100% literacy, with a scientific community rich in mathematicians, physicists and engineers who in the past were able to develop nuclear weapons
    2. With the economy plagued by poor growth and investment, the outlook of Russia has turned gloomy
  3. India
    1. huge potential in the economy
    2. Goldman Sachs: “India could be a bigger growth story than China over the long Run”
    3. India lags the other BRICS in levels of openness, basic education and infrastructure
  4. China
    1. Chinese economists now expect China's annual growth to slow down from rates of 10 to 12 percent to 6 to 8 percent by the end of this decade
    2. China is by far the dominant BRIC in terms of the economy
  5. South Africa
    1. the smallest of the five BRICS
    2. South Africa rated by Bloomberg as the third most miserable economy in the world for 2015
4. Rivals
  1. CIVETs
  2. EAGLES
  3. MINT
  4. CEMENT
  5. BBVA
  6. PINEs
5. External versus internal markets
  1. The rise of the BRICS has been largely underpinned by the supply of external markets
  2. the challenge is to build new internal markets to keep demand high (because of approach saturation)
  3. According to the report, first China, and then a decade later, India, will begin to dominate the world economy
6. Investment
  1. BRICS have enjoyed rising rates of foreign direct investment
  2. EU as the biggest FDI investor in BRICS
  3. some differences in the investment patterns by country
    1. In Brazil, Russia and India, the tertiary sector receives the most inward FDI on average over the past decade, while the primary sector receives the least and the secondary sector is in the middle
    2. In China the secondary sector dominates the majority of the inward FDI and the primary and tertiary sectors receive only a bit
  4. investors are significantly influenced by market size
  5. BRICS are also emerging as investors in other developing countries
7. Trade and Regions
  1. the rise of the BRICS has not fundamentally changed the nature of what is traded in global markets, so much as how much is traded
  2. Kappel defines an economic regional power as “an economy with a relatively large population and land area which plays a dominant role in trade within the region and in the regional governance”
  3. “the relative globalization of the BRICs is related to more global sourcing by the BRICs, enhanced regional competitiveness of the BRICs, and more asymmetry and trade dependence from the perspective of the regional trade partners”
  4. comparing Asia and Latin America regionalism, holds that not all regional economic relations are the same, and some, as in the case of Asia, appear to be mutually beneficial, whereas those in Latin America are less so
Political Dynamics
1. BRICS politics is influenced by ‘the struggle for recognition of developing countries as full and equal partners in the society of states’ as well as ‘states with specific development needs that are too easily ploughed-under in the spurious universality promoted by the developed North’
  1. institutional reform (New global financial institutions)
    1. the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)
    2. the new development bank
  2. Approach to development (what extent they share a common approach to development, and whether this differs from that adopted by the current mainstream development agencies.)
    1. BRICS concentrate on infrastructure and productive sectors, such as energy, as targets for investment
    2. not so big attention on good governance, rule of law, a strong civil society, education, health and the like
    3. goals:
      1. a continued focus on domestic growth and stability in the BRICS
      2. a deeper engagement of the BRICS in multilateral forums and regional trade forums such as the World Trade Organization
      3. the pressure to align the policies of the new bank with sustainable development and other global public goods debates
      4. the promotion of transparent and democratic bank governance.
  3. International relations and multilateralism
    1. what are the incentives for multilateralism of the BRICS, especially for China?
    2. what extent are the BRICS a collective of regional hegemons?
    3. what are the possibilities and limitations of BRICS acting as a bloc in international relations outside of economic and development issues?
  4. Common policies
    1. Emerging economy rivals
    2. Elitism
    3. Human rights

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BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies

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