An introduction to BRICS and MINT
To many of us BRICS AND MINT may sound like buildings and mouth fresheners but these words are a far cry from the buildings and the plants. BRICS & MINT are abbreviations for the emerging markets and who are on the verge of becoming major powers like the Western nations that has dominated the world for so long.
BRICS STAND FOR BRAZIL,RUSSIA,INDIA,CHINA& SOUTH AFRICA. BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialized nations. But what extricates them is their large, fast growing economies. They have influence and power in both regional and global affairs.
BRICS was initially BRIC but as of 2010 South Africa became the newest member and the acronym was changed to BRICS. They joined BRICS on the 24 December 2010 with the formal invitation by the member nations.
The BRICS nations make up 40% of the world’s population and has a combined population of about 3 billion. They are responsible for a combined nominal GDP of US$16.039 trillion which is about 20% of the world GDP. They also have possibly $4 trillion in reserves. As of 2014 BRICS nations represent 18% of the world economy.
The first mentioning of BRICS was made by the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Jim O’Neill.
The current BRICS leaders are Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Narendra Modi of India, Xi Jinping of China and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
MINT is another acronym used to describe the economies of Mexico,Indonesia,Nigeria and Turkey. This term was coined by “Fidelity investments” an asset management firm in the US. This term is mainly used in finance and particularly in the investment sector where it is used to describe the government bonds of these nations.
The MINT nations have a combined nominal GDP of $3470 billion and has a combined population of over 602 million. The MINT economies are just as important as the BRICS even though they are smaller in size and they are trying to break into the next phase.
The current MINT leaders are Enrique Nieto of Mexico, Joko Widodo of Indonesia, Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey.
So this was just an introduction into BRICS and MINT and we shall dissect the topic more in the next post.