Compared to the other four BRICS nations, South Africa is far smaller in size, population and economy. But the reason for the African nation to be invited to join the group is because of its importance in Africa rather than its size. As the group was widely considered to represent the interests of the emerging economies and the developing countries, there should be an African representative.

Besides, inside BRICS, now there is a cooperative mechanism among China, Russia and India. And South Africa is a member of IBSA, a trilateral group with India and Brazil. South Africa's inclusion in the coalition will better integrate the two mechanisms, remove barriers within emerging countries and build a new platform to facilitate their cooperation.

In today's international arena, emerging economies are growing increasingly important, and the expanded BRICS will accelerate such a trend. After the global economic downturn, it is widely acknowledged that the rise of the emerging nations greatly influences the future development of the international configuration. However, compared to the G7, a mature mechanism between seven Western countries [The G7 allowed Russia to join them in 1998, giving birth to the G8], there has been no effective coordination mechanism between the rising countries until now. With the new member's accession, BRICS will become more institutionalized and systematic, and the coordination inside the group will largely be improved. This will help these countries to gain more say in the international arena, and the developed countries' control on the international economic system will be weakened.

These positive changes will be most evident in the G20, which is considered as the most important managing mechanism for the international economic system. Among the 20 members, major developed nations take 10 seats, and emerging economies take the other 10. It seems to be fair, but if looking into the latter 10 countries, you'll find many are over dependent on the major economies, especially the United States, in areas like diplomacy, security and economy. Compared to these countries, South Africa is relatively independent in both politics and economy. This makes it easier to join the other BRICS members to put forward points of view from the perspective of emerging countries, and go against the unreasonable demand of the developed economies.

In addition, South Africa's inclusion will help build the "quota alliance" within the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In October 2010, the G20 Ministerial and Governors' Meeting held in Gyeongju, South Korea, decided to conduct the quota reform and raise the emerging countries' quota. After the reform, the overall quota of the former BRIC rose to 14.18 percent, still some distance from 15 percent, by which countries can have veto rights on important issues. Now South Africa joins the group with its 0.88 percent, bringing the BRICS quota up to the critical 15 percent. Besides, the African nation shares a very similar stance with other BRICS members on IMF quota reform, and thus the inside coordination and cooperation can be easily carried out.

Therefore, I think South Africa becoming the new BRICS country will greatly contribute to uniting the emerging economies. We welcome the new BRICS member.

Is the 'BRIC Decade'Behind Us or Ahead?

Since we coined the acronym in 2001, BRICs has become well-known worldwide, and investors, politicians and many others have shifted their focus to these countries. As we look back on the last decade, it's clear that the BRICs have already begun to play a more significant role in the global economy and on the world political stage. The BRICs contributed 36.3 percent of world GDP growth in PPP terms (or 27.8 percent in U.S. dollars) during the first decade of the century. They have also steadily increased their share of global output. Currently, they make up about a quarter of the global economy

We expect many of the trends we have already seen to continue over the coming 10 years and become even more pronounced. Our baseline projections, underpinned by demographics, a process of capital accumulation and a process of productivity catch-up, envisage that the BRICs, as an aggregate, will overtake the U.S. by 2018. In terms of the size of the economy, by 2020, Brazil will be larger than Italy; and India and Russia will be individually larger than Spain, Canada or Italy. By 2020, we expect the BRICs to account for a third of the global economy (in PPP terms) and contribute about 49.0 percent of global GDP growth.

Source: Goldman Sachs