Paving the BRICS' road ahead

The term BRIC (later BRICS) is the creation of an economist, Jim O'Neill, who first used it in his publication, Building Better Global Economic BRICs, while identifying potentially promising markets for business. There is evidence that at least BRICS' original four economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) had already been considering each other as potential partners before O'Neill clubbed them together in a group. The term, therefore, was coined at a very favorable moment - at a time when the four countries were growing at a fast pace and had begun demanding greater say in global matters.

Two aspects of BRICS are especially important. First is the set of arguments that led to the coining of the term. The four original members of the group are economies with big populations, large geographical areas, rather diversified productive structures and have economic growth rates higher than those of industrialized economies. These characteristics are among the main reasons why the four economies have sought joint courses of action.

If the first set of arguments emphasizes similarities, the second stresses the differences among them in terms of their geographies, histories and economies, and thus leads to skepticism over convergence of ideas and joint action.