BRIC adds South Africa to form BRICS

India today announced the inclusion of South Africa in the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) grouping of emerging economies, thereby expanding it to BRICS.

Announcing this on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Paris, India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said a study commissioned by BRIC finance ministers and central bank governors at their meeting in London on 4 September 2009, would now include inputs from South Africa as well.

The report on the way forward for the world economy is being jointly prepared by BRIC countries. "I propose to include South Africa in this study," Mukherjee said.

While India is anchoring and is in charge of compilation and writing the report, it invited inputs and comments from all the BRIC countries at every stage of the study.

However, Mukherjee said the response from Russia so far has been lukewarm and more inputs from that member would be required for drafting of the report.

"I sincerely expect that the report will bring BRICS countries to work together for stronger cooperation and provide the platform for sharing best practices and challenges," he said.