By: Ben Aris
South Africa is hosting what could turn out to be a historic meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) this August, where the leading emerging markets will invite new members to join an expanded "BRICS+" club that can challenge the established hegemony of the leading developed countries that have ruled the world since the industrial revolution three hundred years ago.
The BRICS are already collectively bigger than the developed world and accounted for 31.5 % of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 in PPP terms against 30.7% for the G7. Adding new members will only increase the body’s clout.
The compound average growth rate (CAGR) of share of BRICS GDP in world’s GDP from 1982 to 2022 rose at 2.75% per year, while that of G7 fell by -1.26% per year. The ball is clearly in the BRICS court.
While BRICS accounts for 42% of the world’s population, its members have less than 15% of the voting rights in the World Bank and the IMF, according to the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.
Nineteen countries have shown interest in joining the BRICS group of nations ahead of its annual summit in South Africa.
The meeting will be held in Cape Town on June 2-3, during which Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will discuss the expansion of its membership, among other things.
Anil Sooklal, South Africa's ambassador to the group, said that "13 countries have formally asked to join and another six have asked informally. We are getting applications to join every day." China, as the world's second-largest economy, proposed the expansion of the group when it was BRICS's chair last year.
Russia has been holding regular negotiations with its partners in the BRICS group about possible expansion, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on April 27, following a decision to work out appropriate guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures set at the fourteenth BRICS summit in Beijing.
"The entire range of issues associated with this is being discussed at BRICS sherpa and sous-sherpa meetings, and, of course, this requires a thorough analysis and delicate internal work by the five countries to reach a consensus," the Russian diplomat said. Though the issue is being discussed on a regular basis, it is too early to reveal any details about the approval process, she added.
Brazil wants an expansion and one based on nominations by existing members. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has already put Argentina’s name forward to balance what Brazil sees as a possible Asian bias emerging, Bloomberg reports.
India is against the nomination system and would prefer a system more akin to the EU accession where candidates have to meet strict criteria before being admitted.
Growing family
In the middle of June 2009, the four fastest growing countries in the world came together for the inaugural BRIC summit. Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg to create a formal organisation where they could pool their resources and co-ordinate their relations with the old world powers. The first formal meeting of the BRIC foreign ministers took place in Yekaterinburg in 2008, but this meeting was attended by presidents and prime ministers, and significantly upped the ante.
Originally coined as a marketing term by Goldman Sachs’ legendary head of research Jim O’Neill to sell stocks, the 2009 meeting marked the group’s first foray into politics as it attempted to create an organisation that had never existed before.
http://infobrics.org/post/38533/