BRICS is an acronym used to talk about the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Many economists think that all these countries are at a similar stage of economic development. When people write about these countries, they usually write "BRICS" or the "BRICS countries".
The acronym was invented by Jim O'Neill, an economist who worked for Goldman Sachs. In 2001, O'Neill wrote an article that he called "Building Better Global Economic BRICs".
Mexico and South Korea were the only other countries with economies that are like the BRICs. O'Neill did not include these countries because they were considered already more developed, as they were already members of the OECD.
In August 2023, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were invited to join the group. Full membership of these countries will take effect on 1 January 2024. They also proposed to have a “partnership model” for other countries and talked about starting a common currency. They planned to use the US dollar less.
Current leaders
Countries that have applied for membership
A total of 14 countries have formally applied to join BRICS, listed as follows: (applied in 2022) (Expected to join in next expansion) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023) (applied in 2023)
References
Bibliography
Elder, Miriam, and Leahy, Joe, et al., Who's who: Bric leaders take their place at the top table, Financial Times, London, September 25, 2008 O'Neill, Jim, BRICs could point the way out of the Economic Mire, Financial Times, London, September 23, 2008, p. 28.