The BRICS, started as just an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, went a step further in July 2014 by initiating the establishment of two new bricks-and-mortar institutions. It seems that the long wait for voting weights adjustments inside the US-dominated Bretton Woods institutions drove the BRICS countries into establishing a new multilateral development bank and a reserves fund with subscribed capital of USD 50 billion and USD 100 billion, respectively. Indeed, for the past two decades GDP valued at purchasing power parity (PPP) of middle-income countries (developing countries with gross national income per capita in the range of USD 1,064-12,745, including the BRICS) has grown by 196% and is now 47% of the world’s total. In 2013, 2.26 percentage points of the 3.10% growth in world GDP valued at PPP was attributable to these middle-income countries, while BRICS’ GDP constituted 21% of the world’s total, compared to 10.6% in 2005, and the latter provided 43.5% of the world’s labour force. In the first quarter of 2014 the BRICS received 13.9% of the world’s and 13.5% of advanced economies’ exports, and accounted for 18.4% and 17.6% of their respective imports. At the beginning of 1992 these figures were just 3.6% and 3.3% for exports, and 5.3% and 5.5% for imports.

While leverage in addressing the democratic deficit in the current global financial order is a possible BRICS’ target, satisfying capital needs is another. Factors such as the slowdown in the emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), the stabilisation of most of the advanced ones and weakening commodity prices make the flow of capital more insecure for all EMDEs, BRICS included. Financial accounts of the BRICS have been dynamic in the past couple of years with primary income, reflecting the investment income and wages balances with the rest of the world, staying mostly negative and not necessarily following investment dynamics. Such has been the case with the MSCI BRIC index (excluding South Africa), showing equity investments performance in the constituent countries. This may suggest that additional, easy-to-access funds, self-managed by BRICS countries and less vulnerable to extraneous volatilities will be more than welcomed.