Advanced Economies and Emerging Markets

CHAPTER 7

The IMF Is Being Hit by BRICS

Overview

As mentioned earlier, BRICS is the acronym for a bloc of five major emerging economies including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The bloc was originally known as “BRIC” before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010. Jim O’Neill coined the acronym in a 2001 paper entitled “Building Better Global Economic BRICs.”¹ The acronym has come into widespread use as a symbol of the apparent shift in global economic power away from the developed G-7 economies toward the developing world. The BRICS members are all emerging economies, either at a developing or newly industrialized stage, but distinguished by their large, fast-growing economies ² and significant influence on regional and global ...