BRICkbats for the Russian Bear. Conventional wisdom rarely survives a good stress test, and few tests have been as stressful as what the global economy has endured over the past 24 months.
A healthy season of reappraisal has dawned, shining a new light on boom-time notions such as the value of opaque markets, the untouchable status of the American consumer and the wisdom of deregulation. One piece of bubble wisdom that has escaped relatively unscathed, however, is the assumption that the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - will increasingly call the economic tune in years to come.
The BRIC notion, coined in a 2003 Goldman Sachs report, is not all bad: At 75-per-cent correct, it scores a good deal better than most economic prognostications of the day. Yet, the economic crisis that began in 2008 exposed one of the four as an imposter. In all of these revisions, Russia survives, despite the writing on its economic wall. Keeping the ‘R’ where it belongs in BRIC. Each of the four countries has demonstrated that they, along with other emerging market economies, could indeed come to challenge the pre-eminence of the advanced countries by midcentury, if not before.
Although the BRICs were unable to decouple from the fallout of the international crisis, they have shown resilience. Even Russia, the worst affected this year, appears to be poised for a strong recovery in 2010, while the advanced economies will still be languishing. Trying to compare countries in terms of rankings is a mug’s game. Russia as a BRIC : Only a Dream ?