Few financial thoughts have caught on as quickly as “BRICs,” which stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China, the “Big Four,” rapid-growth economies on the earth at present. Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill coined the phrase back in 2003, and it now has come into widespread use as a symbol of the shift in global economic power away from the developed G7 economies in the direction of the developing world.
By dint of their sheer size and population — and their collective conclusion to hold their own particular brand of capitalism — BRICs are the economic way forward for the world. Together, the BRICs include more than 25% of the world’s land mass and 40% of the world’s population. And thanks to their predicted quick growth by 2050, the BRICs possibly will cover the combined economies of the present richest nations of this world. China and India will turn out to be the main worldwide suppliers of manufactured goods as well as services. Brazil along with Russia will be the world’s most important suppliers of commodities. The BRICs at the moment already account for the combined GDP of $15.435 trillion dollars on a buying power basis. With that measure, they are already as a group larger than the United States.
This is what Goldman Sachs needed to say in its original report “Dreaming with BRICS: The Path to 2050,” published in 2003.
* China’s economy will exceed Germany in the next few years, Japan by 2015, plus the United States by 2041.
* India’s growth speed would be the highest — not China’s — and it’ll overtake Japan (today the world’s second-largest economy) by 2032.
* BRICs’ currencies could increase in value by 300% over the next 50 years, providing a big tailwind for investors in BRIC assets.
* Taken together, the BRICs may be larger than the United States as well as the developed economies of Europe within 40 years.
* By 2025, BRICs will produce another 200 million people with incomes above $15,000 into the world’s economy. That’s equal to the combined populations of Germany, France plus the United Kingdom.
If anything, Goldman Sachs is becoming more confident on the BRICs since it published its initial report. The size of China’s economy overtook Germany’s economy in 2008, a year earlier than expected, but will overtake Japan in 2010. Goldman Sachs now believes that the Chinese economy will overtake the United States by 2027. And with India accounting for 10 of the thirty fastest-growing urban areas on the earth and 700 million individuals moving to cities before 2050, its impact on the world financial system can be bigger and quicker than implied in 2003.
The BRIC nations have stepped onto the world economic phase having a newfound confidence. Shanghai hosting the World’s Expo in 2010 highlights its target to be a world economic hub by 2020 — investing twice what rival Beijing did while hosting the 2008 Olympics. Brazil is about to embark on its own infrastructure growth since it is hosting both the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Two of the world’s leading five in the Forbes Rich list are from India. (Primary is from Mexico.) In 2010, Moscow has the second-highest number of billionaires on the earth after New York City.
Here’s why you possibly can look ahead to the BRICs’ roll to carry on. Firstly, for the first time in current memory, BRICs are rising not via borrowing, but by investing. China has the world’s highest savings rate. Brazil and Russia are sitting on huge foreign currency reserves, thanks to windfalls from oil profits. Even freewheeling Brazil is showing heretofore unseen discipline by running a fiscal surplus.
Second, high commodity prices have put more money in BRICs’ pockets than ever before. That means much less chance of a financial meltdown like the ones Brazil and Russia had during the 1980s and 1990s.
Lastly, higher credit rankings mean that BRICs today can issue debts in their currencies. A decade after defaulting, Russia has higher credit rating than the European Union economies of Greece and Portugal. The result? A bit more balanced economic increase and financing of investment that both depend on the whims of foreign investors.
Here’s a reality check though. Although their recent high profile, BRICs have to get a many things right to copy the success of Japan, Germany and South Korea. Potential problems include China’s oppressive regime, India’s choking bureaucracy, Brazil’s history of policy flip-flops and Russia’s gangster capitalism.
So yes, the BRIC economies are collectively already roughly 15% better than the United States. But take away the financial affirmative action of buying power parity, and have a look at wealth in real terms, plus the U.S. GDP ($14 trillion) is nearly 40% better than all four BRICs combined ($8.6 trillion). Using actual GDP, the typical American is almost fifteen times richer than her or his BRIC counterpart. In fact, you can find 2.6 billion total individuals in the BRICs and only 308 million Americans. And regardless of the nation’s billionaires, more
than 200 million Indians survive lower than $2 a day.
And historical prediction is a mug’s game. The year 1900 had its own form of BRICs: Argentina, Russia, Austria-Hungary and also United States were the fastest-growing economies in world. Investors were clamoring to purchase Russian railroad bonds for a similar reasons that they’re purchasing Chinese solar stocks today. What did the world look like in 1950? 2 world wars and a number of other revolutions later, Austria-Hungary and Russia did not even exist; Argentina went from economic bull to basket case, and the United States was a world superpower, responsible for 50% of the world’s economic productivity.
Cautionary tales notwithstanding, BRIC nations today offer a number of the most thrilling investment opportunities on the planet. It is possible to make more money in one month investing in BRIC stocks than what you can grind out in S&P over 3 years. Brazil’s stock market, the Bovespa, has gone from about 9,000 in September 2002 to over 70,000 in May 2008. Savvy investors in Russia made over 60 times their money between the meltdown in September 1998 and the market’s peak in May 2007.
And today, it can be less difficult than ever to invest in BRICs. Along with companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, thirty four are Brazilian, six are Russian, eight are Indian and 16 are Chinese. And that doesn’t contain technology companies which can be listed on the Nasdaq. There are some BRIC exchange-traded fund as well — iShares MSCI BRIC Index (BKF) and SPDR BRIC 40 (BIK).
Investing in BRICs can give you the most fascinating and profitable ways to take a position over the coming decades.
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