Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050

Oct 2003 Source: Global Investment Research

How BRICs will shape the next 50 years

  • Over the next 50 years, Brazil, Russia, India and China—the BRICs economies—could become a much larger force in the world economy. We map out GDP growth, income per capita and currency movements in the BRICs economies until 2050.

  • The results are startling. If things go right, in less than 40 years, the BRICs economies together could be larger than the G6 in US dollar terms. By 2025they could account for over half the size of the G6. Of the current G6, only the US and Japan may be among the six largest economies in US dollar terms in 2050.

  • The list of the world’s ten largest economies may look quite different in 2050. The largest economies in the world (by GDP) may no longer be the richest (by income per capita), making strategic choices for firms more complex.

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Dominic Wilson
Managing Director, Global Investment Research Division
Roopa Purushothaman
Many thanks to Jim O’Neill, Paulo Leme, Sandra Lawson, Warren Pearson, and our regional economists for their contributions to this paper.