South Africa hopes to join BRIC group
JOHANNESBURG. August 27. KAZINFORM South African media and newspapers have made a lot of reports about President Jacob Zuma's announcement on Wednesday during his state visit to China that talks are underway for South Africa to become part of the BRIC group of nations which include Brazil, Russia, India and China; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
The BRIC group, also known as the Big Four, is a powerful economic coalition of the four largest developing nations in the world. The four nations work to elevate trade with each other. It's estimated that by 2050 the combined economies of the BRIC group would be larger than the Group of Eight developed economies. There is currently no African member in the group, but all of that could change with South Africa vying for a membership of a grouping that has radiant global influence.
Zuma told South African media that South Africa has proposed its interest in joining the group consisting of four of the leaders of the developing world. "We believe they will take a favourable decision," Zuma said.
"We think that the BRIC expresses a very important grouping in a changing world today".
These four countries encompass over 25 percent of the world's land coverage and 40 percent of the world's population as well as a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of 15,435 trillion U.S. dollars.
South Africa's "participation in BRIC would mean that an entire continent that has a population of over 1 billion people is represented", Zuma told South African media.
Back in South Africa, at a function held on Aug. 15 to mark the Indian Day of independence, India's newly appointed high commissioner to South Africa Virendra Gupta expressed his support for the move; Kazinform cites Xinhua.
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