Our turn to buy the BRICS drinks
I would be very surprised if Goldman Sachs's Jim O'Neill ever suspected that BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), an acronym he coined when presenting a paper in 2001 entitled "Building Better Global Economic BRICs", would still be in common usage some twelve years later.
His original paper suggested a shift away from the traditional G7 economies towards the developing world and predicted that the BRIC economies would overtake the G7 economies by the year 2027. Interestingly, O'Neill was often quizzed about which other countries might join the BRIC group and rejected the idea that South Africa could become a member at a Reuters Investment Outlook conference held as recently as December 2010. Our economy was simply too small to be of any significance he argued. Shortly afterwards we joined BRIC and it then become known as BRICS.
You probably remember those five piece rock bands where four band members are busy on stage energetically thrashing drum kits, playing lead guitar riffs, knocking out mesmerising keyboard solos and sending out throbbing bass lines. And the fifth band member is on stage playing a tambourine. The tambourine player also doubles up for backing vocals and is occasionally promoted to the bongos but the reason he is there is that he failed his A levels at Stowe and his Dad put up the backing for the band and helped sign their first record contract.
Yes gentle reader, you know where this is heading. We are the tambourine player in the BRICS supergroup. Consider the figures (courtesy of News 24). We have a GDP of $390 bln against China's $8.25 trillion. In fact India, the weakest of the BRIC members, has a GDP of just under $2 trillion. We are a minnow and yet here we are hosting the BRICS conference in Durban and acting as though we are a big shot. Perhaps Jim O'Neill was right about our credentials to join the BRIC grouping.
It was interesting to read an interview by Ryland Fisher with our Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, the double barreled Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. I didn't even know such a minister existed but maybe her past efforts have been eclipsed by the unsavoury antics of her cabinet colleagues.