Comment by TheCapeGreek

>It's just a group of randomly selected countries meant to sound nice

Source? Pretty sure BRICS is comprised of the largest regional economies that specifically aren't in the first world, that make for useful alliances for Russia & China specifically.

Africa for a long time didn't have any serious economic contenders for something like BRICS other than South Africa. Nowadays Nigeria is a closer contender on the continent. And of course you have long histories of South African politicians having spent their time in exile during Apartheid in places where they learned to call each other "comrade" even to this day in their political parties. It's not an out of the blue arrangement.

Brazil as far as I'm aware seems to be by far the most economically active in South America too?

India seems like third fiddle to Russia & China in this arrangement as a large economy in Asia.