Conference Overview

The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) were orginally proposed by Goldman Sachs as attractive investment destinations, since these economies were growing very fast and were poised to dominate the world economy by 2050. As a later report clarified, domination of the world economies would not translate into dominant per capita incomes.

Accordingly, at the 9th International Conference hosted by Inmantec at New Delhi, in 2007, we  explored the related but somewhat different meaning of BRICS as an agenda for cooperation which we hoped to catalyse. One of the objectives was to see whether the benefits of the explosive economic growth of these countries could be retained within the countries. Another objective was to consider whether close cooperation among these countries was feasible even in the absence of geographical proximity or cultural homogeneity.

The results of the deliberations held out the hope that such cooperation was indeed feasible. This hope was furthered by the recent heightened perception among the governments of the need for such cooperation among the BRIC countries.

We are greatly encouraged that this hope has fructified so quickly, and that BRIC has been institutionalised within a few short months, with the foreign ministers having met and agreeing to meet regularly.

As the world's fastest growing economies, the BRIC countries naturally have many common interests in a globalised world. The 4-member BRIC group expects to become a powerful instrument to usher in a just world order and to promote energy and food security for all.

The shift in the meaning of BRIC from an investment destination to a potential economic and perhaps even a strategic cooperative raises a variety of other questions. A central concern is naturally this: how would heightened cooperation among BRIC countries affect their existing relations with the EU? This conference will focus on this question.