BRICS meet in Rio de Janeiro under threat from the United States

According to official data, the bloc brings together eleven major emerging economies in the world, representing around 49.5% of the global population, around 40% of global GDP and 26% of total trade. As a formal grouping, BRIC was created after the leaders of Russia, India and China met in Saint Petersburg on the sidelines of the G8 Outreach Summit in 2006. The grouping was formalised during the first BRIC foreign ministers' meeting in New York in 2006. The first summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009. The grouping included South Africa in 2010. Further expansion took place in 2024, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates becoming full members from 1 January 2024. In January 2025, Indonesia also joined, while Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan were introduced as BRICS partner countries. Argentina, already under the leadership of Javier Milei, withdrew its plans to join.