The BRIC, a four member group-ing of emerging economies of the world has expanded its membership to include south Africa and has renamed itself as BRICS. The BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India and China—came into being in 2009, when the leaders of BRIC countries held their first summit meeting on June 16, 2009 at yekaterinburg in Russia and called for the establishment of multi-polar world order. The second summit meeting of BRIC countries was held on April 15, 2010 at Brasilia (Brazil) and issued a joint statement known as Brasilia Declaration. While recog-nising the major and swift changes in the world, the leaders called for a multi-polar, democratic and equitable world order based on international law, equality, mutual respect, co-operation, coordinated action and collective decision-making of all states. They demanded that the G-20 instead of G-8 should play a leading role in the management of global economic order as all of them are the members of G-20 group, which has assumed importance in view of the ongoing global financial crisis. Besides, the BRIC leaders demanded reforms of international financial institutions—IMF and World Bank; early conclusion of Doha develop-ment round of trade negotiations, called for fighting global poverty, and terrorism and early conclusion of climate change negotiations on the basis of principles of common but differentiated responsibility.

During the second, the leaders decided to admit South Africa as the fifth member of this group. Hence-forth it would be known as BRICS. South Africa participated for the first time in the third BRICS Summit, which was held on April 14, 2011 at sanya in China. At the end of third summit, the leaders issued a joint statement, which is known as Sanya Declaration.

Sanya Declaration—April 14, 2011

The Sanya Declaration issued at the end of the third BRICS Summit contains 32 points and Action plan, which outlines the ongoing progra-mmes of cooperation and identifies four new areas of cooperation. The issues included in this declaration demonstrates the direction and con-cerns of BRIC countries. The main points of Sanya declaration are given below :

1. The Declaration titled as “Broad vision, shared prosperity”, called for strengthening mutual coope-ration among themselves and promoting coordination on glo-bal and regional issues of com-mon interest.

2. It highlights the broad aims of BRICS as the development of humanity and establishment of a more equitable and fair world.

3. It recognised the important role being played by BRICS in global peace, security, stability and growth.

4. The BRICS partnership for com-mon development is based on the principles of openness, soli-darity and mutual assistance. Leaders expressed desire for greater engagement with non-BRICS countries and organisa-tion.

5. Leaders called for democracy in international relations, promot-ing spirit of mutual respect and collective decision-making and enhancing the voice of develop-ing countries in global affairs.

6. The declaration calls for compre-hensive reforms of UN Security Council and greater role for India, Brazil and South Africa in UN. But it falls short of explicitly supporting the permanent mem-bership of these countries in UN Security Council. Similarly, they called for more democratic reforms in IMF and World Bank.

7. With respect to the global finan-cial crisis, the leaders called for stability and strong development of physical market and a broad based reserve currency system in IMF. They wanted G-20 to play greater role in global recovery.

8. They demanded peaceful settle-ment of Libyan crisis within the framework of United Nations. They also called for early adop-tion of a comprehensive conven-tion on international terrorism.

9. They also pleaded for develop-ment of nuclear energy, peaceful use of nuclear energy with ade-quate safety measures, reduction in global poverty and realisation of MDGs by 2015.

10. While recognising sustainable development to be main vehicle of economic growth, they called for intensification of political co-operation for concluding climate change negotiations at Durban conference.

11. They reiterated further deepen-ing of economic, trade and invest-ment cooperation among BRIC countries.

12. They desired cooperation in the field of science and technology and innovation including the peaceful use of space.

The fourth Summit of BRICS would be held in India in 2012.

BRICS Action Plan

For the first time the leaders of BRICS have formulated and adopted an Action plan reviews and charts the

Comparative Position of BRICS Countries
Country	Population in M		GDP Nominal in $M		GDP per capita in $			HDI Score
Brazil	193		2023518		10471			0·699
Russia	141		1476912		10521			0·719
India	1180		1537020		1176			0·519
China	1338		5878257		4382			0·663
South Africa	49		354414		7107			0·597
Global Ranks of BRICS Countries
Category	Brazil	Russia		India		China	South Africa
Area	5th	Ist		7th		3rd	25th
Population	5th	9th		2nd		Ist	25th
Labour Force	5th	7th		2nd		Ist	34th
GDP (Nominal)	8th	11th		10th		2nd	28th
GDP-per capita	55th	54th		137th		95th	71st
HDI	73rd	65th		119th		89th	110th
Exports	18th	11th		16th		Ist	36th
FDI Received	11th	12th		29th		5th	31st
No. of Mobiles	5th	4th		2nd		Ist	25th
Military Expenditure	12th	5th		10th		2nd	43rd
Rail Network	10th	2nd		4th		3rd	12th

future course of ongoing cooperative activities. It highlights the meeting of high representatives on security issues, further meetings of Agricul-ture Ministers of member states on food security, organising frequently research and think-tank symposiums, financial cooperation among Banking institutions, holding Business forum meetings and holding more meetings of cooperatives of member countries.

New Areas of Cooperation

The Action plan has identified the following new areas of coopera-tion among members :

1. Holding Friendship Cities and Local government corporation forum in 2011.

2. Engaging in joint research on trade and economic issues.

3. Holding meetings of ministers of health for cooperation in health sector.

4. Updating Bibliographies on BRICS countries.

In addition the cooperation among member countries in the field of sports, economy and culture was also explored in the Summit.

BRICS : Idea and Future pro-jections

BRICS is a group of emerging economies of the world. The word BRIC was originally coined by Jim O’ Neill of Goldman Sachs, in 2001. Goldman sachs is an international financial company which conducts research in the future growth of global economy. Goldman sachs has identified Brazil, Russia, China and India as the four rising economies with huge potential for future growth. according to their estimates, the combined economies of these four countries would eclipse the combined economies of the richest nation now by the year 2050. Though Mexico and South Korea are also the emerging economies of the world, jim O’Neill, the global economist of Goldman Sachs did not include them under the notion of BRIC because they have realised their potential of develop-ment and in that sense they are already developed. Goldman Sachs is surprised at the inclusion of South Africa in BRICS. South Africa was formally admitted in this group on Dec. 24, 2010.

If we look at the global rank of South Africa under different indica-tors, it is not qualified to be included in a group of leading and emerging economies. For example it holds 28th rank in the world in terms of total size of its GDP (Nominal). It appears that South Africa has been included in BRICS due to strategic regions. south Africa is a regional power in Africa and its inclusion in BRICS ensures the effective entry of both China and India in Africa. It should be noted that, at present, both China and India are involved in strategic competition to consolidate their pre-sence in Africa.

Whatever may be the real reason behind the inclusion of South Africa, BRICS has emerged as a major player in global affairs. It should be pointed out that the idea of BRIC was given by Jim O’Neill, but he did not advo-cate the formation of such group in future. However, the four countries realised their importance after the idea of BRIC became popular and decided to form this group only in 2009.

Even, if we exclude South Africa for the sake of discussion, the four BRIC countries hold 25% of the land area of the world and account for 40% of the global population. Their com-bined GDP is 15·4 trillion dollars. Goldman Sachs has prepared a num-ber of reports to analyse the nature of future projections of BRIC countries.

The BRIC thesis was for the first time elaborated by Goldman Sachs in 2003 in its report titled, “Dreaming with BRICS : The path to 2050”. In this report, it is argued that the mutual cooperation among four countries in future is destined to be a reality because China and India are the dominant suppliers of manufac-tured goods, whereas Russia and Brazil are the dominant suppliers of raw material. Thus, their economic needs are complementary. These four countries have huge potential to over-take the US and other rich countries by the year 2050.

The first Follow up Report, published in 2004 predicts that the number of people with more than $3000 per capita would double by the year to reach 800 million mark in BRICS countries, which would fuel the future growth of BRICS countries.

The second follow-up report published in 2007 is titled as “India’s Rising Growth Potential”, and predicts that India’s influence on the global economies will be bigger and quicker than implied in the previous projec-tions. The reason for this assessment is significant areas of research and development and rising middle class in India. It says that India has 10 out of 30 fastest growing cities in the world. From 2007 to 2020 India’s per capita GDP would increase and India would surpass the world economy by the year 2050.

The latest Report of Goldman Sachs on BRIC titled, “Is this a BRIC Decade ?”, published in 2010 is more revealing. According to this Report, the BRIC countries have produced 1/4 of the total Global GDP and their contribution in GDP growth was 36% during last decade 2001-2010. How-ever, in the present decade 2011-2020, their combined GDP would be 1/3 of total global GDP and their contribu-tion in the growth of global GDP world rise to 49%. It further says that BRIC countries together would over-take economically by the year 2018. In this report, again the growth projec-tions are based on the rising middle class (from per capita $6000-30,000) in these countries, which is projected to be 1600 million in 2020 from the present level of 800 million in 2010. Thus by the year 2020, more than half of the global middle class population would be in BRICS countries.

BRICS on Food Security BRICS is just two years old group, but it has intensified cooperation among members on various fields and the most important priority area for cooperation as well as for their well being is food security as BRICS has two most populous countries of the globe as its members. The Agriculture Ministers of BRIC countries held their first meeting in MOSCOW on March 26, 2010 and identified four areas of cooperation to ensure food security. The first area is to develop a common data base about the production and consumption of farm products in member countries, which would facilitate the comprehensive analysis and coordination in the field of food security. The second area is to draw a food security strategy for the most vulnerable section of people in their countries. the third step is to make efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on agriculture production. The fourth step would be the promotion of cooperation and exchanges in farm technologies and innovation among BRIC countries. The ministers also identified the synergy between the four countries in the field of farm production. For example, while China and India are the most populous countries, Brazil and Russia have world’s largest unused resources. This synergy can be utilised for food security.

BRICS : Strategic Orientations and Constraints

On the basis of deliberations of three Summits of BRICS, its certain strategic orientations may be identi-fied. First, BRICS is a group of rising global economies, which are cons-cious of this fact and want to play greater role in global affairs. Second, their fundamental tone appears to be to raise voice against the economic and political hegemony of the US and its western allies at global level. Their demand for ‘multi-polar world’ and ‘fair world order’ are directed towards that end. Also, they want to restruc-ture the global economic order to gain more space for themselves. Their combined strength and effective strength may enable them to realise that goal. Historically, all five mem-bers have never gained access to play a major role in shaping the global political and economic order. Their common feeling is that now it is their turn to play such role.

The second aspect of their activi-ties is the programme of mutual cooperation among themselves in various fields. But so far, not much progress is visible on the ground.

However, the BRICS had certain fundamental constraints in realising their goals. First, the entire BRIC thesis revolves around their future projections as well as their combined strength. Given the nature of their economic competion and divergent views on bilateral, regional and global issues, diversification of cooperation is a difficult task. For example, the differences between India and China and strategic competition between the two in South Asia, Africa and East Asia is well known. During climate change negotiations at Cancun in 2010, this differences among India, Brazil, China and South Africa came to the fore. Second, their external strategic linkages of these countries may obstruct the progress and func-tioning of their combined strength. The US is the main factor in such strategic linkages. In last one decade or so, India has developed strategic partnership with US and most of the observers feel that it is, to some extent, directed against China. India’s peaceful nuclear agreement with US was not appreciated by China. Even China has not so far openly suppor-ted the Indian claim for permanent membership of UN security council. Also, Russia has been to a great extent, coopted in the economic and security architecture of Europe by the US and its European allies. How much it is serious to alter the US dominated global order is doubtful. Inspite of all these factors, they would continue to cooperate with each other for mutual economic gain, but the possibility of their harmo-nious working with equal intensity in other matters is limited.