The Brics association of developing nations – comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – has gained some geographic and economic heft by agreeing to admit Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates. It will now include three countries from West Asia for the first time, add Argentina to increase South America’s representation, and expand its African component to also include Ethiopia and Egypt. Globally, the expansion will complement the influence of Eurasian Russia and two Asian powerhouses, China and India. The enlarged grouping will represent 46.5 per cent of the world’s population and, in some estimates, account for about 30 per cent of global gross domestic product.
More important than the bare numbers is that Brics is taking shape as a geo-economic association in which its founding members, which include some of the largest consumers of energy, will now be joined by some of the largest producers. That, in itself, is a major step forward for a grouping of emerging economies whose imprint will help define the contours of the global economic order. The association’s potential is reflected by the desire of nearly two dozen countries from the Global South, or the non-Western world, to join it.
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