The writer is a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs and served as a UK Treasury minister in David Cameron’s government
It is 20 years since I published a paper which formally grouped together the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China and coined the term “Brics” to describe them. I argued that since these countries were likely to continue their striking gross domestic product growth over the next decade, we urgently needed them to play a bigger role in global governance. With France, Germany and Italy in permanent economic and monetary union, I suggested their individual places in the G7 and corresponding representation at the IMF and World Bank could be consolidated into a single European seat, making way for the Bric countries to join a slightly expanded G7.
It was not until 2003, when my team published a further piece entitled “Dreaming with Brics”, that we hypothesised these four nations could collectively become bigger economies than those of the G6 (excluding Canada). Our timing was fortuitous, coinciding with a globalisation boom which meant many international companies doing more business in Bric countries.