Hola MaHigh-School - August 2018

2017. The BRICS have received both praise and criticism from
numerous commentators. Bilateral relations among BRICS nations
have mainly been conducted on the basis of non-interference,
equality, and mutual benefit”.
Let us peel a few facts here: 1/3 of the world economy and ½
of the world’s people. Which means the countries are not the
wealthiest. It is even more: it is the major block in the southsouth
sphere.
Can they be said to be developing
countries? Well, yes and no.
Surely China and India are developing,
but so are the others.
Russia went through a turbulent
time from 1991 (break-up
of the Soviet Union) but increased
its standard of living by
some 300-800% (depending how we measure it).
China is now the largest economy and combined with India’s the
possibility of being the dominant block.
So why do they need us? Where
China is putting $41 billion into
the BRICS bank, we must put in
$5 billion, which we have difficulty
in finding. If these are
BRICs are we a briquette?
There is one factor here: we do
represent Africa as a continent and we do have the infra-structure
which can match any other country.
But maybe we should shape up our game a bit?
Remember: Nigeria is now a bigger economy
than South Africa.