The BRIC architect's warning for the West

**Ed Butler** (0:00)
Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Today, I'm talking to a man on a mission to redefine the West's relations with China, India and other emerging economies.

**Jim O'Neill** (0:14)
Why don't I use this platform I've got to try and get real solutions for things like infectious diseases, climate change and global AI governance? How can we really feel safe with this unless we've got similar sorts of rules all over the world?

**Ed Butler** (0:29)
Yes, 25 years ago, Lord Jim O'Neill coined the term brick to describe the world's biggest emerging economies. He says there's still a need to promote better understanding between the West and these new power houses. He's also advising the man set to become Britain's next Prime Minister on how to devolve power in the UK and boost growth.
Shifting the centres, that's Jim O'Neill on Business Daily from the BBC.

**Keir Starmer** (0:58)
The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. And I accept that answer with good grace.

**Ed Butler** (1:13)
A dramatic moment in British politics just a few weeks ago. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepping aside after months of poll ratings, election results and mounting political pressure.

**Keir Starmer** (1:26)
I have spoken to His Majesty the King this morning to inform him of my decision, to set out a timetable with nominations opening on the 9th July and completed by the summer recess.

**Ed Butler** (1:39)
Standing in the wings to replace Keir Starmer is the former Labour Minister and Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, who has now been all but formally crowned as Starmer's successor. He has spoken of the need for a fresh start in British politics, a new approach to fixing its economic woes by devolving power to the regions. But what would that involve? And what sort of economic advice is Andy Burnham getting?

**Jim O'Neill** (2:05)
What is so powerful about Andy Burnham and why I am chatting with him is here is a guy that is taking this thing to a whole advanced level. And I have to say I am extremely excited about it.

**Ed Butler** (2:20)
Jim O'Neill, a former chief economist at the Bank of Goldman Sachs, is now a crossbench peer in Britain's House of Lords. He has already served as a junior Treasury minister in a former Conservative government in Britain, looking in part at how to enhance the economy of Northern England. Could he now potentially have a role doing something very similar in a centre-left Labour government? We'll have more on that shortly. But first, let's recall the term that he's most famous for. His coining back in 2001 of the BRIC acronym, referring to the then emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

**Jim O'Neill** (3:00)
It coincided with the end of the Asian crisis, China becoming clearly a more important economy, and the Europeans adopting the euro.
And I thought, these big emerging giants should have a better say in the global rules of engagement, because it wasn't fair. And at the end of the day, global governance should represent relative importance in the world.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:21)
Brazil, Russia, India and China, collectively known as BRIC countries, have called for a greater voice and representation of emerging economies in international financial institutions.

**Ed Butler** (3:34)
Well, as the news headlines spread, it was clear that the term was catching on. By 2009, Russia had led the other nations in the group to formalise it as a rival to the better known Western structures like the G7 and G20.
South Africa was added as a leading African nation as well, providing the S to the acronym BRICS. At Golden Saks, Jim O'Neill was attempting to chart the speed with which these economies might be threatening the preeminence of those in the West. He says that the forecasts he made then have proved largely accurate.

**Jim O'Neill** (4:10)
What is extraordinary is the scale of the overshoot, the positive contribution of both China and India.
What is equally true is that Russia and Brazil, and since they became part of the political club, South Africa, have actually underperformed what we projected. But because of the importance of China and India in the aggregates, collectively, the Brics have vastly outperformed what we suggested. So not surprisingly, the total weight of the Brics combined in the world economy has accelerated significantly.

**Ed Butler** (4:42)
Nonetheless, some things haven't happened as much as at least some people were forecasting, have they? The decline and death of the dollar as a global reserve currency. Some have been talking about that. It has yet to happen. We've seen a property crash, of course, in China. The demographic crashed there too.