Brazil, Russia, India and China - BRIC

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Yogesh Zambare

BRIC or BRICs are terms used in economics to refer to the combination of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. General consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a thesis of the Goldman Sachs investment bank. The main point of this 2003 paper was to argue that the economies of the BRICs are rapidly developing and by the year 2050 will eclipse most of the current richest countries of the world.

Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. The thesis was proposed by Jim O'Neill, global economist at Goldman Sachs. These countries are forecast to encompass over thirty-nine percent of the world's population.

Goldman Sachs predicts China and India, respectively, to be the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services while Brazil and Russia would become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. Cooperation is thus hypothesized to be a logical next step among the BRICs because Brazil and Russia together form the logical commodity suppliers to India and China. Thus, the BRICs have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc to the exclusion of the modern-day G8 status. Brazil is dominant in soy and iron ore while Russia has enormous supplies of oil and natural gas. Goldman Sachs' thesis thus documents how commodities, work, technology, and companies have diffused outward from the United States across the world.