The Global Clout of the New BRICS

Leaders of China, Russia, India and other BRICS nations are gathering in Kazan, Russia on Tuesday for the bloc’s first annual summit since its major expansion last year. In August 2023, the group decided to invite six nations to join. Four of these nations – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates – formally joined the bloc on January 1, 2024. Argentina rejected the offer and Saudi Arabia is still considering it.

The expansion of BRICS beyond founding members Brazil, Russia, India and China as well as South Africa, which joined in 2010, aims to strengthen its influence as a global economic and political force, providing a counterweight to the G7 and other Western-led institutions. The group seeks to promote a more multipolar world, reducing the dominance of the United States and its allies.

Speaking on the expansion of the BRICS, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said at a press briefing last year: “We shared our vision of BRICS as a champion of the needs and concerns of the peoples of the Global South. These include the need for beneficial economic growth, sustainable development and reform of multilateral systems.”

As our chart shows, the new, expanded BRICS represent roughly 45 percent of the world’s population and 35 percent of global GDP when measured at purchasing power parity. With the addition of Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the bloc has grown its combined oil production by nearly 50 percent and now accounts for almost 30 percent of global oil output, according to the Energy Institute. In terms of exports, the group’s footprint is relatively small. Last year, its nine members accounted for just 22 percent of global merchandise exports, with China alone accounting for nearly two thirds of the bloc’s exports.

Speaking of China: despite all claims of BRICS being “an equal partnership of countries that have differing views but have a shared vision for a better world,” as South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa put it last year, it’s hard to ignore China’s outsized role within the group, both in terms of economic and political power. Measured at purchasing power parity, China’s GDP is larger than the combined GDP of the remaining eight BRICS members, making it hard to imagine the country not wielding that power in negotiations within the bloc.