According to Megh Updates, a number one online news platform based in India, BRICS countries have now overtaken G7 countries when it comes to PPP share of world GDP. This represents a big change in the worldwide economic landscape, and Megh Updates predicts that this trend is prone to proceed in the longer term.
BRICS is a gaggle of nations that features Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, while the G7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
Recently, BRICS has been growing, with Bangladesh, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates joining the New BRICS Development Bank, with several other countries prone to follow suit. Additionally, Mexico, previously a part of the North American free trade bloc NAFTA (now replaced by the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement), is predicted to affix BRICS within the near future. The move is predicted to signal growing concern in global economies, including those bordering America, in regards to the United States’ ability to trade on fair and equal terms.
Currently, the BRICS countries produce 31.5% of world GDP, while the G7 share has fallen to 30%. BRICS is predicted to account for greater than 50% of world GDP by 2030, and the proposed expansion is prone to speed up this trend. In fact, in 2015, China’s GDP surpassed that of the United States when it comes to purchasing parity, highlighting the growing economic strength of the BRICS countries.
These events are expected to trigger significant changes on a world scale, as Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized in his farewell remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin after their recent summit. The primary problem is that the BRICS countries, including potential recent members, are increasingly allied with China and Russia, and the influence of the G7, including the US and the EU, is decreasing.
This trend has been driven by several aspects, including a general lack of trust in U.S. foreign policy, the will to create another trading bloc to the G7 to ease sanctions, the perception of the EU’s overreach in global markets, and historical aversion to the European legacy of the colonial era.
These events are also prone to speed up the continued shift away from a unilateral world order led by the United States towards a multipolar order led by the foremost BRICS economies. With Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Russia and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s soon scheduled visit to Beijing, BRICS is undergoing significant changes in its importance and global reach.
From now on, the BRICS are prone to intensify their calls for reform in lots of global institutions where they imagine they aren’t adequately represented. These institutions include the structure of the United Nations, shareholding arrangements within the World Bank and the IMF, and strengthening the membership and renewal processes of world bodies reminiscent of the WTO and WHO. While progress could also be slow at first, BRICS is predicted to place increasing pressure on the G7 to relinquish control.
This change in global dynamics is prone to create a more polarized geopolitical landscape in the approaching decade. Without finding ways to adapt to each China, Russia and an emerging global order that is not any longer Western-centric, there may be a risk of world divisions.
