Could a bigger Brics bloc be a global match for the G7?
- The new members of the China-led group will add to its economic clout but that is unlikely to translate into political heft any time soon, observers say
- Without common ground, consensus will be more difficult to reach, they say
The bloc was not meant to rival the United States and the Group of Seven wealthy economies, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said, but the expansion did invite comparisons.
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In the past 14 years, Brics has grown from an investment-related acronym to a political platform for intergovernmental cooperation with ambitions to give the Global South more influence in world affairs.
By 2020, the five member states had already overtaken the G7 countries in terms of gross domestic product adjusted by purchasing power parity, according to International Monetary Fund data. In these terms, the enlarged Brics is projected to collectively account for 36.9 per cent of global GDP this year, rising to 38.6 per cent in 2028.
Meanwhile, the adjusted combined output of the seven advanced economies – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – is expected to fall from 29.9 per cent this year to 27.8 per cent in five years.
But the expanded Brics still largely trails the G7 in terms of per capita GDP, and only the UAE ranks in the upper-middle range when compared to the group of advanced economies, based on IMF data.