Size, population, GDP: The BRICS nations in numbers

The term “BRIC” first emerged in 2001 to refer to the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was coined by Jim O’Neill, a British economist at Goldman Sachs investment bank, and soon became popular with financial analysts and investors eager to tap into fast-growing markets.  

In 2009, representatives of the four countries adopted the acronym at a first BRIC summit held in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. The union was designed to give these nations greater weight on the global stage and offset the dominance of industrialised Western economies.  

South Africa joined the group a year later, adding the “S” to the acronym. 
 

In 2015, the five countries established their own lender, the New Development Bank (NDB), based in China’s economic hub of Shanghai and envisioned as an alternative to the Washington-based World Bank.     

The bank’s stated mission is to “mobilise resources for development projects in BRICS, emerging economies and developing countries”. Its current president is Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s former president, who was appointed in March 2023.  

Expansion?

The NDB has helped spur growing interest in the bloc, fuelling talk of a possible expansion in the coming years. Applicants to join the BRICS club include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina and Egypt.   

The BRICS already constitutes a major territorial and demographic bloc, spanning almost a third of the world’s land surface and encompassing more than 40% of its total population. The world’s two most populous nations, India and China, count nearly 3 billion inhabitants between them.   

Together, the five BRICS economies account for just over a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the World Bank. The overall figures, however, conceal significant disparities between members.    

In a 2021 interview with French daily Le Monde, O’Neill observed that Russia and Brazil’s respective shares of the global economy had, “after a decade of rapid growth, shrunk back to their level from 2001”.   

“Perhaps I should have called this club the ‘IC’ (for India and China),” O’Neill added. “Or just the ‘C’.”