A STUDY OF BRICS NATION BEING THE REAL GROWTH DRIVERS OF WORLD ECONOMY

The BRICS have in the past decade shaken the world economy with their remarkable growth. Their share in the world GDP grew from 11 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2011. However, much of this success could be attributed to China and India. While China indulged in investment based growth model, India was reaping the benefits of its economic liberalization. Meanwhile Russia earned from the energy needs that China's growth had created and Brazil attacked its own macroeconomic woes for a faster growth. South Africa, however, sneaked into the group and has been the one most lagging behind. The question which this report attempts to address is whether these nations are still the growth drivers of the world. There are several factors which suggest that even though these economies might continue to grow they cannot recreate the magic with their remarkable growth in 2000s. That period saw an unprecedented growth partly because of the surge in the growth of these countries owing to reasons inherent to their economies and partly due to the sluggish growth of the richer economies. That was the period when they witnessed the major sub-prime crisis of which the BRICS, to some extent, were shielded. The room to catch-up is now low. The challenges which each of the BRICS is facing have been used to suggest that their ruling period appears to have ended unless they revisit their strategies. Instead the N11 have emerged as the next set of potential economies though they too cannot be expected to replicate what BRICS achieved from 1999 to 2011