BRICS facts for kids
BRICS logo during the 2025 Brazilian chairmanship
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| Named after | First five member states' initials in English |
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| Formation |
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| Founded at |
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| Type | Intergovernmental organization |
| Purpose | Political and economical |
| Fields | International politics |
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Membership
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 Brazil Russia India China South Africa Egypt Ethiopia Indonesia Iran United Arab Emirates |
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Formerly called
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BRIC |
BRICS is an intergovernmental organization consisting of ten countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. It is considered to be a counterpart and alternative to the G7 bloc of the world's largest economies.
The term 'BRIC' was originally identified to highlight investment opportunities. The grouping later evolved into a geopolitical and geoeconomic bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies since 2009. Relations among BRICS are conducted mainly based on non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit.
The founding countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China held the first leaders summit in Russia in 2009 under the name BRIC. Following a renaming of the organization, South Africa attended its first summit as a member in 2011 after joining the group in 2010. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates attended their first summit as member states at the 2024 summit in Russia. Indonesia officially joined as a member state in early 2025, becoming the first Southeast Asian member. The acronym BRICS+ has been informally used to reflect new membership.
Some in the West consider BRICS institutions an alternative to institutions such as those led by nations of the G7 bloc, which consist of some of the leading economies; others also describe the grouping as an incoherent joining of countries around increasing non-Western and anti-American objectives. Together BRICS has implemented competing initiatives such as the New Development Bank, the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, BRICS pay, the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication and the BRICS basket reserve currency. BRICS has received both praise and criticism from numerous commentators and world leaders.
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Statistics
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Currently, the group is dominated by China, which has about 70% of the organization's total GDP. Brazil, India, and China are among the world's ten largest countries by population, area, and gross domestic product (GDP, nominal and PPP). All five initial member states are members of the G20, with a combined nominal GDP of US$28 trillion (about 27% of the gross world product), a total GDP (PPP) of around US$65 trillion (35% of global GDP PPP), and an estimated US$5.2 trillion in combined foreign reserves (as of 2024).
BRICS+ accounts for 46% of the world's population. BRICS+ share of world GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) is 35.6% in 2022. China dominates the BRICS+ accounting for 52% of its total GDP (at PPP). In 2024 the informality rate was 62% while the labour force participation was 60.8%.
Member states
Partner states
Partner states are a new category for integration of prospective members, introduced in 2024 at the 16th BRICS summit of Kazan when disunity and ambiguity among core and prospective members lead to political blowback. These countries are observer states that, to prevent future infighting, are not officially part of the BRICS bloc, yet would get support from BRICS members. These observer states must prove themselves as partners before possibly integrating as a member, similar to the accession process of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. 13 states were invited to be formal partners; the following 8 states then ensured their partnership status by December 2024; Indonesia instead directly joined the bloc in January 2025.
| Flag | Country |
Capital |
Area (km2) |
Population (2016) |
Density (/km2) |
GDP per cap. (PPP) |
HDI | Currency |
Official languages | Leaders | Application submitted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belarus Republic of Belarus |
Minsk | 207,595 | 9,498,700 | 45.8 | 18,246 | 0.798 | Belarusian ruble (BYR) | Belarusian Russian |
Head of State: Alexander Lukashenko Head of Government: Roman Golovchenko |
2023 | |
| Bolivia Plurinational State of Bolivia |
Sucre | 1,098,581 | 12,186,079 | 10.4 | 9,933 | 0.692 | Boliviano (BOB) |
Spanish Quechua Aymara Guarani Other Indigenous languages |
Head of State and Government: Luis Arce | ||
| Cuba Republic of Cuba |
Havana | 109,884 | 10,985,974 | 101.8 | 22,237 | 0.764 | Cuban peso (CUP) |
Spanish | Head of State: Miguel Díaz-Canel Head of Government: Manuel Marrero Cruz |
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| Kazakhstan Republic of Kazakhstan |
Astana | 2,724,900 | 34,534 | 0.802 | Tenge (KZT) | Kazakh Russian |
Head of State: Kassym-Jomart Tokayev Head of Government: Oljas Bektenov |
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| align="center" | Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | 330,803 | 34,564,803 | 101 | 39,030 | 0.807 | Malaysian ringgit (MYR) | Malay | Head of State: Ibrahim Iskandar Head of Government: Anwar Ibrahim |
2024 |
| Thailand Kingdom of Thailand |
Bangkok | 513,120 | 65,975,198 | 132.1 | 23,401 | 0.803 | Thai baht (THB) | Thai | Head of State: Vajiralongkorn Head of Government: Paetongtarn Shinawatra |
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| Uganda | |||||||||||
| Uzbekistan |
Four more countries had been invited to join the BRICS bloc as observer partner states like the ones listed above but have not yet confirmed that status as of December 2024.
| Flag | Country |
Capital |
Area (km2) |
Population (2016) |
Density (/km2) |
GDP per cap. (PPP) |
HDI | Currency |
Official languages | Leaders | Application submitted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algeria | Algiers | 2,381,741 | 46,700,000 | 19 | 16,483 | 0.745 | Algerian dinar (DZD) | Arabic | |||
| Nigeria Federal Republic of Nigeria |
Abuja | 923,769 | 220,159,000 | 237 | 8,005 | 0.510 | Nigerian naira (NGN) | English | Head of State and Government: Muhammadu Buhari | 2023 | |
| Turkey Republic of Turkey |
Ankara | 783,562 | 90,564,000 | 115 | 37,978 | 0.827 | Turkish lira (TRY) | Turkish | Head of State and Government: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | ||
| Vietnam Socialist Republic of Vietnam |
Hanoi | 331,344.82 | 100,300,000 | 298 | 15,470 | 0.726 | Vietnamese đồng (VND) | Vietnamese | Head of State: Lương Cường Head of Government: Phạm Minh Chính |
Application and expansion process
While there is currently no formal application process to join BRICS, any hopeful government must receive the unanimous backing of all member states to receive an invitation. It was not until the early 2020s that discussions regarding allowing new states to join the club were widely held. Leaders and senior diplomats from the participating members began to discuss the prospect of adding additional members to the organization at that point.
In August 2023, at the 15th BRICS Summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates had been invited to join the organization on 1 January 2024.
On 30 December 2023, the new government of Argentina, which formally applied for BRICS membership under Alberto Fernández's government in 2022, officially declined the offer to join the bloc due to the new government's different foreign policy.
On 1 January 2024, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran officially joined the bloc.
Saudi Arabia has not responded to an invitation to join BRICS, and is still considering joining.
On 2 September 2024, Turkey officially applied to join the bloc. At the same time, Turkey has been a NATO member since 18 February 1952 and is also a European Union candidate country. Turkey's EU membership process started on 3 October 2005 but was frozen on 13 March 2019. In September 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that his country would apply for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. On 11 July 2024, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated in a statement to the U.S. Newsweek magazine that they did not consider Turkey's membership in NATO as an alternative to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS.
Algeria previously applied for membership in 2023, but later rejected it in September 2024, making Algeria the second country after Argentina to decline and stop its application.
Following the 2024 BRICS summit, Brazil blocked Venezuela's application to the bloc, largely due to the disputed 2024 Venezuelan elections and the Venezuelan crisis. The country in response recalled its ambassador from Brazil.
Since new members joined the acronym used has informally been BRICS+, that is, BRICS Plus.
In January, 2025, Indonesia officially joined as a full member of BRICS.
Current leaders
Current leading member state representatives:
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See also
In Spanish: BRICS para niños
- Belt and Road Initiative
- BRICS Games
- Developing country
- East–West dichotomy
- Emerging power
- List of BRICS summit attendees
- List of country groupings
- List of multilateral free-trade agreements
- MIKTA
- G7
- Potential superpowers
- Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
