BRIC

acronym for the four large, rapidly growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China

Jim O’Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management . . . is perhaps best known as the economist who nearly a decade ago coined the acronym BRIC — for Brazil, Russia, India and China — developing economies that, he said, were big enough and growing rapidly enough that no investor could afford to neglect them. The giant in that group is still China, he said, whose transformation has been so thorough that “most people, and not just investors, don’t realize the sheer dimension of its rapidly growing importance in the world economy.”

See article at: NYT 23Jan11 – Chasing the China Bandwagon

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The BRIC acronym for the world’s biggest emerging economies, created by the Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill a decade ago, became a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy. It arguably diverted billions of investment from elsewhere to his chosen markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Mr. O’Neill’s new bloc of large growth markets — which could be called MIST for short and is made up of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey — may do the same. But smaller markets with better governance could offer investors higher long-term returns.

The BRIC grouping in 2001 was well timed. With global interest rates low for several years after its coinage, large money pools were actively seeking new investment opportunities. Growth in Asia made investing there appealing. And the active marketing of the BRIC concept attracted large amounts of money to Russia and Brazil that otherwise might not have flowed to either country, and thereby increased growth in both.

See article at: NYT 24Jan11 – Turning the Focus to Governance