Can South Africa be considered a true BRIC, or is it just another N11?
On 14 April 2011, South African President Jacob Zuma participated in the third annual summit of the BRICs after the letter ‘S’ was added to the term BRIC and South Africa was made a full member of the group. The formation of this group occurred around eleven years ago, when economist Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘BRIC’ to group together four of the fast-rising economies of the world – Brazil, Russia, India and China. When the alliance was formed in 2001, along with many other economic factors, population was considered to be a major influence for the future economic growth of the four dynamic economies. Whereas, for South Africa, the total population in 2011 was recorded to be just around 48 million which was significantly low compared to the BRICs. Then again, when future growth prospect is considered, South Africa also lacks far behind China, India, Brazil and Russia. According to Jim O’Neill, compared to the BRIC standard, South Africa’s growth prospect is very weak, even weaker than some other countries currently part of the N11 alliance of developing countries (Investmentweek, 2011). This paper will discuss the promising growth estimates of the BRICs and match the economic factors behind the predictions with South Africa and assess whether South Africa has the ability to be part of the economic alliance or not. The paper will then consider the views of the authors and South African officials who support the inclusion. Afterwards, Goldman Sachs’ Growth Environment Score tool will be used to compare South Africa with the initial members. This paper will argue that South Africa does not match up to its BRICS counterparts; furthermore, after analysing the possibilities of considering South Africa as a member of the N-11 alliance, it will be stated that the African nation does not even possess the abilities to be part of this bloc. As the paper will neither suggest which country should replace South Africa nor discuss possibilities of other
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