Brics: What you need to know about the bloc
Status check: Within South-east Asia, Malaysia and Thailand have formally submitted their applications; Laos officially expressed interest at the recent leaders’ pow-wow, and Vietnam and Indonesia have signalled readiness to cooperate
BRICS – the name of the five-country alliance formed by the first letters of its early members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is gaining prominence as a strategic counterbalance to the political and economic power of the West.
The Business Times brings you everything you need to know about the bloc, and its implications for the South-east Asian region.
At the beginning
The acronym was coined more than two decades ago by a former Goldman Sachs chief economist in a research paper on the growth potential of the four countries, excluding South Africa.
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