Does South Africa belong to BRICS?

 South Africa joined the BRIC grouping (now BRICS) in 2010, and numerous other countries have expressed interest in joining the bloc, including Argentina and Iran.

 Do you think that a country like Nigeria would be more representative of sub-Saharan Africa? What value does South Africa add to BRICS?

BRICS is not decisively about a politico-economic grouping of comparable economic-demographic stature, though that is certainly one of the determining factors in deciding the membership. South Africa’s entry into the BRICs on December 24, 2010, was a Christmas gift to itself. Even though it has a much smaller population and economy as compared to Nigeria, other factors worked in its favor – its vast natural resources such as gold, diamonds, and platinum, its excellent infrastructure, its established corporate footprints, a culture of innovation, easy access to finance for business, a stable macro and micro financial climate, an advanced banking system, and functioning regulatory frameworks.

South Africa is already the voice of the continent at various international forums. It is poised to serve as a base as well as a gateway for investment from the BRICS countries to the vast market of a billion Africans.

But Nigeria has a place too: If we take into account the fluid nature of international politics and constellations like BRICS or Nigeria’s ‘Vision 20: 2020’, (a development goal designed in 2010 to take the country to the league of the top 20 economies of the world by 2020), we might have ‘BRINCS,’ and Nigeria might step in to be the western.