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BRICs Will Be ICs If Brazil and Russia Don't Shape Up

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BRICs Will Be ICs If Brazil and Russia Don't Shape Up



Brazil and Russia’s membership of the BRICs may expire by the end of this decade if they fail to revive their flagging economies, according to Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist who coined the acronym.

Asked if he would still group Brazil, Russia, India and China together as emerging market powerhouses as he did in 2001, O’Neill said in an e-mail “I might be tempted to call it just ’IC’ or if the next three years are the same as the last for Brazil and Russia I might in 2019!!”

The BRIC grouping will be dragged down by a 1.8 percent contraction in Russia and less than 1 percent expansion in Brazil, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. China is seen growing 7 percent and India 5.5 percent.

The BRICs were still booming as recently as 2007 with Russia expanding 8.5 percent and Brazil in excess of 6 percent that year. The bull market in commodities that helped propel growth in those nations has since ended, while Russia has been battered by sanctions linked to the crisis in Ukraine and Brazil has grappled with an unprecedented corruption scandal involving its state-owned oil company.

“It is tough for the BRIC countries to all repeat their remarkable growth rates” of the first decade of this century, said O’Neill, a Bloomberg View columnist and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management International. (GSGEPPA) “There was a lot of very powerful and fortuitous forces taking place, some of which have now gone.”

Growth Recovery
The growth slump this year isn’t a new normal though and O’Neill sees expansion in Brazil and Russia partially recovering, helping the BRICs average about 6 percent growth per annum this decade -- still more than double the average for the Group of Seven nations.

Their share of global gross domestic product will “rise sharply,” he said.

O’Neill had previously estimated average annual growth of 6.6 percent for the BRICs this decade, a pace it was close to achieving through last year mainly because China exceeded the 7.5 percent annual average growth he estimated for the first three years, he said.

Unlike Brazil and Russia, China is embracing economic change while India, after the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister and benefiting from low oil prices and a young labor pool, may have brighter prospects this decade than last, O’Neill said.

With China and India spurring growth, the BRICs will remain the most dominant and positive force in the world economy “easily,” said O’Neill.

China, India
China growing at 7 percent will add about $1 trillion nominally to global output every year, O’Neill said. When measured by purchasing power parity, China’s growth adds twice as much as the U.S.’s, he said. India expanding at 6 percent will add twice as much as the U.K. in those terms, he said.

“Their consumption is increasingly key for global consumption and which markets were amongst the world’s strongest in 2014? China and India both were up significantly,” he said. “So many investors are herd like, they probably have already forgotten the BRIC’s but it is silly. They are the most important influence in the world.”

A prediction in his book, “The Growth Map,” that the BRICs economies would overtake the U.S. in size this year will be delayed likely until 2017 primarily by the drag from Russia, O’Neill said.

The founding of the BRIC’s Development Bank signals the group’s influence in global economic affairs will rise, O’Neill said.

By 2035, the BRICs will be as big as the Group of Seven nations while China is in “a reasonable position” to be bigger than the U.S. in 2027 and India may overtake France to become the world’s fifth biggest economy by 2017, “certainly before 2020,” he said.

BRICs Will Be ICs If Brazil and Russia Don't Shape Up, Phrasemaker Warns  - Bloomberg
 
The problem is that Brazil and Russia are mainly commodities exporters.

So the fortunes of their economies are closely tied to commodity prices, which unfortunately are very volatile. See the recent collapse in the price of oil for example.
 
Brazil and Russia are 2 of the five pillars of BRICS. Without them brics is NOTHING !
 
I would love Indonesia be included instead of Brazil or Russia.
 
Not possible.Russia and Brazil are the main partners of BRIC.If they dont rise up there is no meaning for BRIC .

The problem is that Brazil and Russia are mainly commodities exporters.

So the fortunes of their economies are closely tied to commodity prices, which unfortunately are very volatile. See the recent collapse in the price of oil for example.

A possible western plan for breaking BRIC.???It is a possibility.
Without Brazil and Russia,especially Russia ,we cant challenge Bretton Woods institution.
 
We can add new members in bricks like "briics" (Indonesia) , or Mexico or turkey.
 
It's true their recent performance hasn't been up to scratch. But we can't forget that these are the 2nd and 3rd biggest economies of BRICS. There are simply no substitutes. We can't replace them with Mongolia just because they had luckluster growth during the same year Mongolia had double-digit growth.
 
The problem is that Brazil and Russia are mainly commodities exporters.

So the fortunes of their economies are closely tied to commodity prices, which unfortunately are very volatile. See the recent collapse in the price of oil for example.

Brazil & Russia need to diversify their economy in a serious way

It's true their recent performance hasn't been up to scratch. But we can't forget that these are the 2nd and 3rd biggest economies of BRICS. There are simply no substitutes. We can't replace them with Mongolia just because they had luckluster growth during the same year Mongolia had double-digit growth.

Plus there is no 'M' in BRICS
 
The problem is that Brazil and Russia are mainly commodities exporters.

So the fortunes of their economies are closely tied to commodity prices, which unfortunately are very volatile. See the recent collapse in the price of oil for example.
But isn't China in the same boat too? Its economy depends mainly on exports rather than internal markets.
 
But isn't China in the same boat too? Its economy depends mainly on exports rather than internal markets.

No, exports make up only 26% of our GDP, which is fairly low. For example, exports make up 30% of Britain's GDP. And our exports are not primarily based on commodities like oil and raw materials, but on manufactured goods.

That's why our economic growth rate has not been as volatile as the other BRICs, we are still the highest.

India's growth rate fell to 4-5% a few years back during the Eurozone crisis, and the Rupee fell from 39 to 62 recently as well (when the Fed hinted they might reduce the stimulus). You were hit far harder than we were by global economic shocks.

We are still adding the most to global GDP every year (by far) at over $1 trillion per annum.
 
It's true their recent performance hasn't been up to scratch. But we can't forget that these are the 2nd and 3rd biggest economies of BRICS. There are simply no substitutes. We can't replace them with Mongolia just because they had luckluster growth during the same year Mongolia had double-digit growth.

You are right, Russia ranks 9th world-wide, and Brazil ranks 7th, so if they don't perform then truly BRICS is meaningless.

Why there is BRIC/BRICS in the first place? There is nothing in common between them, in fact vast difference in size and socio-politico-economic structure, everybody knows. That i-bankers tried to create a category worthy for investors i.e. those fast growing and big economies, that's all.

Energy revolution like shale gas and other techs are likely to change the whole picture, with industrialized nations resuming advantages over resources driven economies.

However trade blocs do have real meaning, complimenting economies should bind closer, forming trade alliances to reduce trade costs, improve synergy, secure existing competitive advantages and ultimately prevail. China + Russia is a good combination, the $400 bln gas co-op is a good example.

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So BRICS is nothing but a term, China is >160% of Brazil + Russia + India combined.
Real efforts should be put in making SCO works as a trading bloc, consider bringing in newly industrialized countries like Pakistan, Iran, etc. forming a Eurasian trade bloc to compete with the US-led West.
 

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Why there is BRIC/BRICS in the first place? There is nothing in common between them, in fact vast difference in size and socio-politico-economic structure, everybody knows. That i-bankers tried to create a category worthy for investors i.e. those fast growing and big economies, that's all.

Exactly right.

BRICs is just an investment term created by Goldman Sachs.

The better one for geopolitics is the SCO.
 

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