The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, a Goldman Sachs economist, to refer to four fast-growing economies at comparable stages of development: Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was only in 2009 that the leaders of these countries began to meet at summits and formalized their relationship, subsequently inviting South Africa to join in 2010.

The place of BRICS in the world economy has been growing steadily in recent years and according to the latest estimates International Monetary FundThis group of five emerging powers now has more economic weight than the seven most industrialized countries on the planet (the G7), which are the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada.

The share of BRICS countries in global GDP (recalculated in purchasing power parity) increased from 20% in 2003 to 32% in 2023. At the same time, the share of G7 countries decreased from 42% to 30%. As our graph shows, BRICS economic growth is mainly driven by China and India – the group’s other economies, such as the G7 countries, have seen their share of global GDP decline.

On the other hand, if we look at the level of GDP per capita, BRICS remains far behind the G7 economies, with an average value around three times lower in 2023.