BRICS

**BRICS** is an acronym used to talk about the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. Many economists think that all these countries are at a similar stage of economic development. When people write about these countries, they usually write "BRICS" or the "BRICS countries".

The acronym was invented by Jim O'Neill, an economist who worked for Goldman Sachs.  In 2001, O'Neill wrote an article that he called "Building Better Global Economic BRICs".

Mexico and South Korea were the only other countries with economies that are like the BRICs. O'Neill did not include these countries because they were considered already more developed, as they were already members of the OECD.

They also proposed to have a “partnership model” for other countries and talked about starting a common currency. They planned to use the US dollar less.

## Countries that are called "partnership countries"

These countries could gain full membership later, but they are not full members. As of 2025's second quarter:

Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam

## Leaders

Leaders as of 2025's first quarter

## Countries that have applied for membership

A total of 15 countries have formally applied to join BRICS, listed as follows:
- (applied in 2022) (Expected to join in next expansion)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)
- (applied in 2023)

## Bibliography

- Elder, Miriam, and Leahy, Joe, et al., _Who's who: Bric leaders take their place at the top table_, Financial Times, London, September 25, 2008
- O'Neill, Jim, _BRICs could point the way out of the Economic Mire_, Financial Times, London, September 23, 2008, p. 28.

## Infobox (infobox)

- **subbox**: yes
- **labelstyle**: padding-right:1em;text-align:left
- **datastyle**: text-align:left
- **data1**: President of Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula da Silva
- **data2**: President of Russia, President Vladimir Putin
- **data3**: Prime Minister of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
- **data4**: President of the People's Republic of China, President Xi Jinping
- **label5**: 15th BRICS summit, (2023 host)
- **data5**: President of South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa


## Infobox (organization)

- **name**: BRICS
- **image size**: 250
- **caption**: BRICS representatives at the 2024 summit, from right to left: Mauro Vieira, Masoud Pezeshkian, Mohamed bin Zayed al nahyan, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Cyril Ramaphosa, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Abiy Ahmed
- **logo**: BRICS 2024 Russian chairmanship logo.svg
- **logo size**: 250
- **logo caption**: BRICS logo during the 16th BRICS summit, 2024 Russian chairmanship
- **map**: BRICS, partners and applicants (2025-06).svg
- **map caption**: Map key
- **map2 caption**: ----
**Member states and key leaders:**
----<hr/>
- **named after**: Founder member states' initials (in English)
BRIC (economic term)
- **type**: International organization, Intergovernmental organization
- **purpose**: Political and economical
- **fields**: International relations, International Politics
- **languages**: Persian language, Persian, Arabic, Amharic, Chinese (language), Chinese, Russian (language), Russian, Hindi, Portuguese (language), Portuguese
- **website**: [https://brics-russia2024.ru/en/ brics-russia2024.ru]
- **formerly**: BRIC
- **gdp nominal**: $28.393 trillion
- **gdp ppp**: $65.786 trillion
- **funding**: Member states