•  cape town, south africa
• Monday, January 10, 2011
• Inter Press Service

South Africa’s inclusion in the BRIC group of powerful emerging economies has sparked intense debate, with some saying it has done itself a disservice by trying to punch above its weight, and others lauding the inclusion as a step towards becoming a more important player on the global stage.

South Afroca was formally invited to join Brazil, Russia, India and China as a full member of the group in late December. Significantly, but unsurprisingly, the invitation came from China, which has become the country’s largest trading partner. The move has been a long time coming. South Africa has doggedly lobbied the BRIC Forum in a bid to become a full member. President Jacob Zuma followed up government efforts with talks with BRIC leaders last year to promote the country’s case.

But the move has been criticised by some analysts and commentators, particularly as they say South Africa, is a far smaller economy than the other four, will be treated as very much the junior partner. 'It’s degrading to have to lobby for membership. It would have been different if the country had been invited in the first place. South Africa will simply be playing second fiddle to Russia, Brazil, China and India,' believes Mzukisi Qobo, the Head of the Emerging Powers and Global Challenges Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

The country’s GDP of $285 billion pales compared to Russia or India’s ($1.6 billion), let alone Brazil or China’s. Its population is much smaller and its economic growth of around 3 percent is a shadow of China’s 10 percent, Brazil’s 7 percent and India’s 8 percent. South Africa’s sluggish economic growth and limited market sits somewhat uneasily with the original intention of BRIC, a concept coined by Jim O’ Neill of Goldman Sachs in 2003 to identify countries that had the fastest-growing economies, bulging middle classes and promising markets, and which had the potential to overtake the G7 as the world’s best-performing economies by 2040.

Increasingly economically powerful Indonesia was recently touted as a more worthy candidate than South Africa - with Turkey, Mexico, South Korea and Nigeria also considered ahead of South Africa. O’ Neil has been quoted as saying he was opposed to the country being included, due to its small size and struggling economic record. The decision to pull South Africa on board seems to be far more political than economic. Qobo believes the country’s political standing and diplomatic clout has had a lot to do with its ascension to the Forum.

'Its made substantial contributions to global governance issues and played a very active role in post-conflict reconstruction in Africa. Its voice has been fluent and it’s seen as an honest broker in international relations. That would definitely have some influence,' says Qobo. While most analysts are skeptical of its ascension, some believe it is a strategic and clever foray by South Africa.

'It’s very politically astute and it’s what South Africa needs to thrust the country into the first tier of emerging markets,' says Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory Services. More importantly, he believes it could be an incentive to SADC’s 15 member countries.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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