From IBSA to BRICS to BASIC

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It all started with trilateral trade agreements among India, Brazil and South Africa. Then South Africa was silently featured among Brazil, Russia, India and China but eventually they included it among the acronyms, BASIC; Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

With over 80 minerals lying in the ground, South Africa has developed from an agrarian into a modern industrial state diversifying their economy from overreliance of the resources space.  Now their gross domestic product is fueled by many sources;

i.                     Finance, real estate and business services – 21%

ii.                    Manufacturing – 15%

iii.                   wholesale, retail, motor trade and accommodation – 11%

iv.                 Government expenditure – 10%

v.                    mining and quarrying- 5% among others

South Africa recorded a trade surplus of USD 544 million in December 2009, according to the South African Revenue Service (SARS) which is 0.19% or a gross domestic product of USD 282 billion (mind you the country was strongly affected by the global financial crises which slowed down the economy which has been growing very much in the last 18 years.

Economists expect the real benefit of the world cup to trickle down in the years to come in terms of growth fueled by the heavy investment in hard and soft infrastructure and from the simple fact that the world cup was like a 30 day ad campaign with the audience being 6.5 billion souls.