What is BRICS? The bloc of emerging economies explained

BRICS is a group of large emerging economies whose governments meet every year to coordinate on trade, finance and their say in world affairs. The name comes from its first five members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Since 2024 it has added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, with Saudi Arabia's status still unclear. It is a club, not a treaty alliance: it has no charter, no secretariat and no common currency.

In short

• BRICS began as a 2001 investment-bank label and became a real group of governments in 2009, with yearly summits chaired in turn by each member.
• Its one hard institution is the New Development Bank, set up in 2015, which lends for infrastructure in member countries.
• A shared BRICS currency has been talked about for years, but none exists and members disagree about whether they want one.

Where did the name BRICS come from?

The word started as a forecast, not an organization. In 2001 Jim O'Neill, then head of global economics research at Goldman Sachs, wrote a paper called Building Better Global Economic BRICs. He argued that Brazil, Russia, India and China were growing fast enough that world bodies built around rich countries, such as the G7, would need to make room for them. "BRIC" was shorthand for investors.

The governments took the label for themselves. Their foreign ministers first met as a group in New York in September 2006, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The first leaders' summit followed in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on 16 June 2009, in the middle of the global financial crisis. South Africa was invited in December 2010 and attended its first summit in 2011, which added the "S".

Who is in BRICS now?

Membership changed more between 2023 and 2025 than in the group's whole history before. At the Johannesburg summit in August 2023, six countries were invited to join from 1 January 2024: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Four took the seat. Argentina's new government declined in December 2023. Saudi Arabia never publicly confirmed, and it has been described inconsistently since, even though it is listed and attends. Indonesia joined as a full member on 6 January 2025, the first from Southeast Asia.

In October 2024, at the Kazan summit in Russia, the group created a second tier called partner countries, which take part in some meetings without full membership. At the New Delhi summit on 12–13 September 2026, India's government listed 11 members and 10 partners: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. These lists move, so any count needs its date.

A timeline of how the group grew

Year	What happened
2001	Goldman Sachs paper coins "BRIC" for Brazil, Russia, India, China
2006	The four foreign ministers meet in New York
2009	First leaders' summit, Yekaterinburg, 16 June
2010–2011	South Africa invited, attends its first summit in 2011
2014	Treaties for the New Development Bank and a reserve fund signed in Fortaleza
2015	The New Development Bank opens in Shanghai
2023	Six countries invited at Johannesburg; Argentina later declines
2024	Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE join; partner tier created at Kazan
2025	Indonesia joins; partners start taking part
2026	India hosts the 18th summit in New Delhi, 12–13 September

What does BRICS actually do?

Most of what BRICS does is talk, and the talk has a direction: more voice for large non-Western economies in a system built mostly by the United States and Europe. Each year one member chairs the group and hosts the summit, along with dozens of meetings of ministers, central bankers and officials. The leaders end with a joint declaration, which covers trade, development, health, climate and reform of bodies such as the UN Security Council and the International Monetary Fund. The declarations are agreed by consensus, so they tend to say what every member can sign, and they bind no one.

Two institutions give the group something more solid. The New Development Bank, agreed in 2013 and set up by treaty in Fortaleza, Brazil, in July 2014, opened in 2015 with its headquarters in Shanghai. Each of the five founders put in an equal share of its starting capital, so none of them outvotes the others, unlike the World Bank, where voting follows money. It lends for roads, power, water and clean energy, and it has taken in members beyond BRICS: Bangladesh and the UAE in 2021, Egypt in 2023, Algeria in 2025 and Uzbekistan in 2026, according to the bank. The Council on Foreign Relations put its approvals at more than $32 billion for 96 projects by mid-2025. The second institution, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, is a pool of up to $100 billion that members promise to lend each other in a currency crisis.

Is there a BRICS currency?

No. There is no BRICS currency, no plan with dates for one, and no agreement that there should be one. The idea comes up because some leaders have floated it, Brazil's president among them, and because the group does talk about relying less on the US dollar. What it actually works on is narrower: letting members settle trade with each other in their own currencies, such as rupees, yuan or rubles, and building payment links that don't depend on Western banks.

Days before the Kazan summit in October 2024, Russia's president, the summit's host, called a common currency "a long term prospect" that was "not under consideration", and said members' economies would first need to become more alike. At the summit he said the group was not trying to reject the dollar, only to build alternatives so it could not be used against them. A banknote photographed at Kazan was a symbolic mock-up, not money. Members have never agreed even in principle that they want one.

A shared currency is hard for a group like this. The euro needed a single central bank and rules on budgets and debt that took decades to build, and the euro countries are neighbors that trade mostly with each other. BRICS members are spread over four continents, run very different economies, and two of the biggest, China and India, have a long-running border dispute. The note on why the dollar is the reserve currency explains what any rival would have to offer.

How big is BRICS, and does it matter?

The group is large by headcount and smaller by money. By the Council on Foreign Relations' 2025 count, the members hold almost half the world's population and more than a quarter of the world economy. Measured by purchasing power, which adjusts for lower prices in poorer countries, their share of world GDP is larger, about 35% in 2022 by one widely cited estimate. China is by far the largest economy among them, which is one reason other members watch how much the group leans toward Beijing.

Still argued

Whether BRICS is becoming a rival bloc to the West or stays a loose forum is argued. Those who see it rising point to its growth since 2024, the number of countries asking to join, and the share of world output and population it now holds. Skeptics point out that its members include close US partners such as India and the UAE as well as US rivals such as Russia and Iran, that decisions need consensus, and that its declarations rarely turn into joint action. Its record so far, a working bank and yearly summits but no currency and no common foreign policy, supports a middle reading.

BRICS is often set against the G7, which is also an informal club with yearly summits. The difference is who is in the room: the G7 is seven rich countries, all of them democracies, while BRICS mixes democracies, one-party states and monarchies whose main shared interest is a bigger voice for themselves.

Check yourself

• Without looking back: how did a 2001 investment paper become a group of governments?
• What are the two institutions BRICS has built, and what does each one do?
• Why is a common BRICS currency much harder than it sounds?

Sources

• BRICS — Wikipedia
• What Is the BRICS Group and Why Is It Expanding? — Council on Foreign Relations, 2025
• Members — New Development Bank
• About NDB — New Development Bank
• Putin advises cautious approach, says common BRICS currency not being considered yet — ThePrint, 2024
• BRICS Summit under India's presidency begins in New Delhi — All India Radio News, 12 September 2026