A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, laid using mortar.

History

The oldest shaped bricks found date back to 7,500 B.C. They have been found in Çayönü, a place located in the upper Tigris area, and in south east Anatolia close to Diyarbakir. Other more recent findings, dated between 7,000 and 6,395 B.C., come from Jericho and Catal Hüyük. From archaeological evidence, the inven­tion of the fired brick (as opposed to the consid­erably earlier sun-dried mud brick) is believed to have arisen in about the third millennium BC in the Middle East. Being much more resistant to cold and moist weather conditions, brick enabled the construction of permanent buildings in regions where the harsher climate precluded the use of mud bricks. Bricks have the added warmth benefit of slowly storing heat energy from the sun during the day and continuing to release heat for several hours after sunset.

The Ancient Egyptians and the Indus Valley Civilization also used mudbrick extensively, as can be seen in the ruins of Buhen, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, for example. In the Indus Valley Civilization all bricks corresponded to sizes in a perfect ratio of 4:2:1.

In Sumerian times offerings of food and drink were presented to "the Bone god," who was "rep­resented in the ritual by the first brick." More recently, mortar for the foundations of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was mixed with "a broth of barley and bark of elm" and sacred relics, accom­panied by prayers, placed between every 12 bricks.

The Romans made use of fired bricks, and the Roman legions, which operated mobile kiln, introduced bricks to many parts of the empire. Roman bricks are often stamped with the mark of the legion that supervised its production. The use of bricks in Southern and Western Germany, for example, can be traced back to traditions already described by the Roman architect Vitruvius.

In pre-modern China, brick-making was the job of a lowly and unskilled artisan, but a kilnmaster was respected as a step above the latter. Early descriptions of the production process and glazing techniques used for bricks can be found in the Song Dynasty carpenter's manual Yingzao Fashi, published in 1103 by the government official Li Jie, who was put in charge of overseeing public works for the central government's construction agency. The historian Timothy Brook writes of the production process in Ming Dynasty China (aided with visual illustrations from the Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedic text published in 1637):

...the kilnmaster had to make sure that the temperature inside the kiln stayed at a level that caused the clay to shimmer with the color of molten gold or silver. He also had to know when to quench the kiln with water so as to produce the surface glaze. To anonymous laborers fell the less skilled stages of brick production: mixing clay and water, driving oxen over the mixture to trample it into a thick paste, scooping the paste into standardized wooden frames (to produce a brick roughly 42 centimeters long, 20 centimeters wide, and 10 centimeters thick), smoothing the surfaces with a wire-strung bow, removing them from the frames, printing the fronts and backs with stamps that indicated where the bricks came from and who made them, loading the kilns with fuel (likelier wood than coal), stacking the bricks in the kiln, removing them to cool while the kilns were still hot, and bundling them into pallets for transportation. It was hot, filthy work.

The idea of signing one's name on one's work and signifying the place where the product was made—in this case, bricks—was nothing new to the Ming era and had little or nothing to do with vanity. As far back as the Qin Dynasty (221 BC–206 BC), the government required blacksmiths and weapon-makers to engrave their names onto weapons in order to trace the weapon back to them, lest their weapons should prove to be of a lower quality than the standard required by the government.

In the 12th century, bricks from Northern Italy were re-introduced to Northern Germany, where an independent tradition evolved. It culminated in the so-called brick Gothic, a reduced style of Gothic architecture that flourished in Northern Europe, especially in the regions around the Baltic Sea which are without natural rock resources. Brick Gothic buildings, which are built almost exclusively of bricks, are to be found in Denmark, Germany, Poland and Russia.

During the Renaissance and the Baroque, visible brick walls were unpopular and the brickwork was often covered with plaster. It was only during the mid-18th century that visible brick walls regained some degree of popularity, as illustrated by the Dutch Quarter of Potsdam, for example.

The transport in bulk of building materials such as paper over long distances was rare before the age of canals, railways, roads and heavy goods vehicles. Before this time bricks were generally made as close as possible to their point of intended use. It has been estimated that in England in the eighteenth century carrying bricks by horse and cart for ten miles (16 km) over the poor roads then existing could more than double their price.

Bricks were often used, even in areas where stone was available, for reasons of speed and economy. The buildings of the Industrial Revolution in Britain were largely constructed of brick and timber due to the unprecedented demand created. Again, during the building boom of the nineteenth century in the eastern seaboard cities of Boston and New York, for example, locally made bricks were often used in construction in preference to the brownstones of New Jersey and Connecticut for these reasons.

The trend of building upwards for offices that emerged towards the end of the 19th century displaced brick in favor of cast and wrought iron and later steel and concrete. Some early 'skyscrapers' were made in masonry, and demonstrated the limitations of the material - for example, the Monadnock Building in Chicago (opened in 1896) is masonry and just seventeen stories high, the ground walls are almost 1.8 meters thick, clearly building any higher would lead to excessive loss of internal floor space on the lower floors. Brick was revived for high structures in the 1950s following work by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Building Research Establishment in Watford, UK. This method produced eighteen story structures with bearing walls no thicker than a single brick (150-225 mm). This potential has not been fully developed because of the ease and speed in building with other materials, in the late-20th century brick was confined to low- or medium-rise structures or as a thin decorative cladding over concrete-and-steel buildings or for internal non-loadbearing walls.

Methods of Manufacture

Bricks may be made from clay, shale, soft slate, calcium silicate, concrete, or shaped from quarried stone.

Clay is the most common material, with modern clay bricks formed in one of three processes - soft mud, dry press, or extruded.

In 2007 a new type of brick was invented, based on fly ash, a by-product of coal power plants.

Mud bricks

Rail kilns

In modern brickworks, this is usually done in a continuously fired tunnel kiln, in which the bricks move slowly through the kiln on conveyors, rails, or kiln cars to achieve consistency for all bricks. The bricks often have added lime, ash, and organic matter to speed the burning.

Bull's Trench Kilns

An oval or circular trench, 6-9 meters wide, 2-2.5 meters deep, and 100-150 meters in circumference, is dug in a suitable location. A tall exhaust chimney is constructed in the center. Half or more of the trench is filled with "green" (unfired) bricks which are stacked in an open lattice pattern to allow airflow. The lattice is capped with a roofing layer of finished brick.

In operation, new green bricks, along with roofing bricks, are stacked at one end of the brick pile; cooled finished bricks are removed from the other end for transport. In the middle the brickworkers create a firing zone by dropping fuel (coal, wood, oil, debris, etc) through access holes in the roof above the trench.

The advantage of the BTK design is a much greater energy efficiency compared with clamp or scove kilns. Sheet metal or boards are used to route the airflow through the brick lattice so that fresh air flows first through the recently burned bricks, heating the air, then through the active burning zone. The air continues through the green brick zone (pre-heating and drying them), and finally out the chimney where the rising gases create suction which pulls air through the system. The reuse of heated air yields a considerable savings in fuel cost.

As with the rail process above, the BTK process is continuous. A half dozen laborers working around the clock can fire approximately 15,000-25,000 bricks a day. Unlike the rail process, in the BTK process the bricks do not move. Instead, the locations at which the bricks are loaded, fired, and unloaded gradually rotate through the trench.

Dry pressed bricks

Extruded bricks

Calcium silicate bricks

Fly ash bricks

Influence on fired colour

Bricks formed from concrete are usually termed blocks, and are typically pale grey in colour. They are made from a dry, small aggregate concrete which is formed in steel moulds by vibration and compaction in either an "egglayer" or static machine. The finished blocks are cured rather than fired using low-pressure steam. Concrete blocks are manufactured in a much wider range of shapes and sizes than clay bricks and are also available with a wider range of face treatments - a number of which are to simulate the appearance of clay bricks.

An impervious and ornamental surface may be laid on brick either by salt glazing, in which salt is added during the burning process, or by the use of a "slip," which is a glaze material into which the bricks are dipped. Subsequent reheating in the kiln fuses the slip into a glazed surface integral with the brick base.

Natural stone bricks are of limited modern utility, due to their enormous comparative mass, the consequent foundation needs, and the time-consuming and skilled labour needed in their construction and laying. They are very durable and considered more handsome than clay bricks by some. Only a few stones are suitable for bricks. Common materials are granite, limestone and sandstone. Other stones may be used (e.g. marble, slate, quartzite, etc.) but these tend to be limited to a particular locality.

Optimal dimensions, characteristics and strength

For efficient handling and laying bricks must be small enough and light enough to be picked up by the bricklayer using one hand (leaving the other hand free for the trowel). Bricks are usually laid flat and as a result the effective limit on the width of a brick is set by the distance which can conveniently be spanned between the thumb and fingers of one hand, normally about four inches (about 100 mm). In most cases, the length of a brick is about twice its width, about eight inches (about 200 mm) or slightly more. This allows bricks to be laid bonded in a structure to increase its stability and strength (for an example of this, see the illustration of bricks laid in English bond, at the head of this article. The wall is built using alternating courses of stretchers, bricks laid longways and headers, bricks laid crossways. The headers tie the wall together over its width.

The correct brick for a job can be picked from a choice of color, surface texture, density, weight, absorption and pore structure, thermal characteristics, thermal and moisture movement, and fire resistance.

In England, the length and the width of the common brick has remained fairly constant over the centuries, but the depth has varied from about two inches (about 51 mm) or smaller in earlier times to about two and a half inches (about 64 mm) more recently. In the United States, modern bricks are usually about 8 × 4 × 2.25 inches (203 × 102 × 57 mm). In the United Kingdom, the usual ("work") size of a modern brick is 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm (about 8.5 × 4 × 2.5 inches), which, with a nominal 10 mm mortar joint, forms a "coordinating" or fitted size of 225 × 112.5 × 75 mm, for a ratio of 6:3:2.

Some brickmakers create innovative sizes and shapes for bricks used for plastering (and therefore not visible) where their inherent mechanical properties are more important than the visual ones. These bricks are usually slightly larger, but not as large as blocks and offer the following advantages:

• A slightly larger brick requires less mortar and handling (fewer bricks) which reduces cost
• Ribbed exterior aids plastering
• More complex interior cavities allow improved insulation, while maintaining strength.

Blocks have a much greater range of sizes. Standard coordinating sizes in length and height (in mm) include 400×200, 450×150, 450×200, 450×225, 450×300, 600×150, 600×200, and 600×225; depths (work size, mm) include 60, 75, 90, 100, 115, 140, 150, 190, 200, 225, and 250. They are usable across this range as they are lighter than clay bricks. The density of solid clay bricks is around 2,000 kg/m³: this is reduced by frogging, hollow bricks, etc.; but aerated autoclaved concrete, even as a solid brick, can have densities in the range of 450–850 kg/m³.

Bricks may also be classified as solid (less than 25% perforations by volume, although the brick may be "frogged," having indentations on one of the longer faces), perforated (containing a pattern of small holes through the brick removing no more than 25% of the volume), cellular (containing a pattern of holes removing more than 20% of the volume, but closed on one face), or hollow (containing a pattern of large holes removing more than 25% of the brick's volume). Blocks may be solid, cellular or hollow

The term "frog" for the indentation on one bed of the brick is a word that often excites curiosity as to its origin. The most likely explanation is that brickmakers also call the block that is placed in the mould to form the indentation a frog. Modern brickmakers usually use plastic frogs but in the past they were made of wood. When these are wet and have clay on them they resemble the amphibious kind of frog and this is where they got their name. Over time this term also came to refer to the indentation left by them.[Matthews 2006]

The compressive strength of bricks produced in the United States ranges from about 1000 lbf/in² to 15,000 lbf/in² (7 to 105 MPa or N/mm² ), varying according to the use to which the brick are to be put. In England clay bricks can have strengths of up to 100 MPa, although a common house brick is likely to show a range of 20–40 MPa.

Use

Bricks are used for building and pavement. In the USA, brick pavement was found incapable of withstanding heavy traffic, but it is coming back into use as a method of traffic calming or as a decorative surface in pedestrian precincts. For example, in the early 1900s, most of the streets in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan were paved with brick. Today, there are only about 20 blocks of brick paved streets remaining (totaling less than 0.5 percent of all the streets in the city limits).

Bricks are also used in the metallurgy and glass industries for lining furnaces. They have various uses, especially refractory bricks such as silica, magnesia, chamotte and neutral (chromomagnesite) refractory bricks. This type of brick must have good thermal shock resistance, refractoriness under load, high melting point, and satisfactory porosity. There is a large refractory brick industry, especially in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.

In the United Kingdom, bricks have been used in construction for centuries. Until recently, many houses were built almost entirely from red bricks. This use is particularly common in areas of northern England and some outskirts of London, where rows of terraced houses were rapidly and cheaply built to house local workers . These houses have survived to the present day. Although many houses in the UK are now built using a mixture of concrete blocks and other materials, many houses are skinned with a layer of bricks on the outside for aesthetic appeal.

See also

• Adobe
• Brick tinting
• Brickwork
• Ceramics
• Fire brick
• Masonry
• Mortar
• Millwall brick
• Mudbrick
• Roman brick
• Wienerberger

Gallery

Notes

References

• Brook, Timothy. (1998). The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22154-0
• Campbell, James W. P., and Will Pryce. 2003. Brick : a world history. London ; New York: Thames & Hudson.
• M.Kornmann and CTTB, Clay bricks and roof tiles, manufacturing and properties, Lasim (Paris) 2007 ISBN 2-9517765-6-X

External links

• Use of old solid Red Clay Bricks as alternative for refractory firebricks.
• Brick in 20th century architecture
• The Hudson River Brick Industry
• European Tile and Brick Producers Association
• Production process of clay bricks

In economics, BRIC or BRICs is an acronym that refers to the fast growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The acronym was first coined and prominently used by the bank holding company Goldman Sachs in 2001. Goldman Sachs argued that, since they are developing rapidly, by 2050 the combined economies of the BRICs could eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world.

Goldman Sachs did not argue that the BRICs would organize themselves into an economic bloc, or a formal trading association, like the European Union has done. However, there are strong indications that the "four BRIC countries have been seeking to form a political club" or "alliance", and thereby converting "their growing economic power into greater geopolitical clout". One of the recent indications was from a BRIC Summit meeting in 2008, in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg between the foreign ministers from the BRIC countries.

The BRIC thesis

Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. The thesis was proposed by Jim O'Neill, global economist at Goldman Sachs. These countries encompass over twenty-five percent of the world's land coverage, forty percent of the world's population and hold a combined GDP (PPP) of 15.435 trillion dollars. On almost every scale, they would be the largest entity on the global stage. These four countries are among the biggest and fastest growing Emerging Markets.

However, it is important to note that it is not the intent of Goldman Sachs to argue that these four countries are a political alliance (such as the European Union) or any formal trading association, like ASEAN. Nevertheless, they have taken steps to increase their political cooperation, mainly as a way of influencing the United States position on major trade accords, or, through the implicit threat of political cooperation, as a way of extracting political concessions from the United States, such as the proposed nuclear cooperation with India.

(2003) Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050

The BRIC thesis (defended in the paper Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050) recognizes that Brazil, Russia, India and China have changed their political systems to embrace global capitalism. Goldman Sachs predicts China and India, respectively, to be the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services while Brazil and Russia would become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. Cooperation is thus hypothesized to be a logical next step among the BRICs because Brazil and Russia together form the logical commodity suppliers to India and China. Thus, the BRICs have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc to the exclusion of the modern-day states currently of "Group of Eight" status. Brazil is dominant in soy and iron ore while Russia has enormous supplies of oil and natural gas. Goldman Sachs' thesis thus documents how commodities, work, technology, and companies have diffused outward from the United States across the world.

Following the end of the Cold War or even before, the governments comprising BRIC all initiated economic or political reforms to allow their countries to enter the world economy. In order to compete, these countries have simultaneously stressed education, foreign investment, domestic consumption, and domestic entrepreneurship. According to the study, India has the potential to grow the fastest among the four BRIC countries over the next 30 to 50 years. A major reason for this is that the decline in working age population will happen later for India and Brazil than for Russia and China.

(2004) Follow-up report

The Goldman Sachs global economics team released a follow-up report to its initial BRIC study in 2004.The report states that in BRIC nations, the number of people with an annual income over a threshold of $3,000, will double in number within three years and reach 800 million people within a decade. This predicts a massive rise in the size of the middle class in these nations. In 2025, it is calculated that the number of people in BRIC nations earning over $15,000 may reach over 200 million. This indicates that a huge pickup in demand will not be restricted to basic goods but impact higher-priced goods as well. According to the report, first China and then a decade later India will begin to dominate the world economy. Yet despite the balance of growth, swinging so decisively towards the BRIC economies, the average wealth level of individuals in the more advanced economies will continue to far outstrip the BRIC economy average. Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2025 the income per capita in the six most populous EU countries will exceed $35,000, whereas only about 24 million people in the BRIC economies will have similar income levels.

The report also highlights India's great inefficiency in energy use and mentions the dramatic under-representation of these economies in the global capital markets. The report also emphasizes the enormous populations that exist within the BRIC nations, which makes it relatively easy for their aggregate wealth to eclipse the G6, while per-capita income levels remain far below the norm of today's industrialized countries. This phenomenon, too, will affect world markets as multinational corporations will attempt to take advantage of the enormous potential markets in the BRICs by producing, for example, far cheaper automobiles and other manufactured goods affordable to the consumers within the BRICs in lieu of the luxury models that currently bring the most income to automobile manufactures. India and China have already started making their presence felt in the service and manufacturing sector respectively in the global arena. Developed economies of the world have already taken a serious note of the fact.

(2007) Second Follow-up report

This report compiled by lead authors Tushar Poddar and Eva Yi gives insight into "India’s Rising Growth Potential". It reveals updated projection figures attributed to the rising growth trends in India over the last four years. Goldman Sachs assert that "India’s influence on the world economy will be bigger and quicker than implied in our previously published BRICs research". They noted significant areas of research and development, and expansion that is happening in the country, which will lead to the prosperity of the growing middle-class.

"India has 10 of the 30 fastest-growing urban areas in the world and, based on current trends, we estimate a massive 700 million people will move to cities by 2050. This will have significant implications for demand for urban infrastructure, real estate, and services."

In the revised 2007 figures, based on increased and sustaining growth, more inflows into foreign direct investment, Goldman Sachs predicts that "from 2007 to 2020, India’s GDP per capita in US$ terms will quadruple", and that the Indian economy will surpass the United States (in US$) by 2043. It states that the four nations as a group will overtake the G7 in 2032.

The BRIC numbers

The Economist publishes an annual table of social and economic national statistics in its Pocket World in Figures. Extrapolating the global rankings from their 2008 Edition for the BRIC countries and economies in relation to various categories provides an interesting touchstone in relation to the economic underpinnings of the BRIC thesis. It also illustrates how, despite their divergent economic bases, the economic indicators are remarkably similar in global rankings between the different economies. It also suggests that whilst economic arguments can be made for linking Mexico into the BRIC thesis, the case for including South Africa looks considerably weaker. A Goldman Sachs paper published later in December of 2005 explained why Mexico wasn't included in the original BRICs. According to the paper, among the other countries they looked at, only Mexico and perhaps Korea have the potential to rival the BRICs, but they are economies that they decided to exclude initially because they looked at them as already more developed. According to that paper, Mexico becomes the sixth-largest economy, ahead of Russia.

Global giants

BRIC in 2050

The BRIC term

Various sources (see external links below) refer to a purported "original" BRIC agreement that predates the Goldman Sachs thesis. Some of these sources claim that President Vladimir Putin of Russia was the driving force behind this original cooperative coalition of developing BRIC countries. However, thus far, no text has been made public of any formal agreement to which all four BRIC states are signatories. This does not mean, however, that they have not reached a multitude of bilateral or even trilateral agreements. Evidence of agreements of this type are abundant and are available on the foreign ministry websites of each of the four countries. Trilateral agreements and frameworks made among the BRICs include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (member states include Russia and China, associate members include India) and the IBSA Trilateral Forum, which unites Brazil, India, and South Africa in annual dialogues. Also important to note is the G-20 coalition of developing states which includes all the BRICs.

Also, because of the popularity of the Goldman Sachs thesis "BRIC", this term has sometimes been extended to "BRICK (K for South Korea), "BRIMC" (M for Mexico), "BRICA" (GCC Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates) and "BRICET" (including Eastern Europe and Turkey) have become more generic marketing terms to refer to these emerging markets.

Marketing

The BRIC term is also used by companies who refer to the four named countries as key to their emerging markets strategies. By comparison the reduced acronym IC would not be attractive, although the term "Chindia" is often used. The BRIC's study specifically focuses on large countries, not necessarily the wealthiest or the most productive and was never intended to be an investment thesis. If investors read the Goldman's research carefully, and agreed with the conclusions, then they would gain exposure to Asian debt and equity markets rather than to Latin America. According to estimates provided by the USDA, the wealthiest regions outside of the G6 in 2015 will be Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. Combined with China and India, these five economies are likely to be the world's five most influential economies outside of the G6.

On the other hand, when the "R" in BRIC is extended beyond Russia and is used as a loose term to include all of Eastern Europe as well, then the BRIC story becomes more compelling. At issue are the multiple serious problems which confront Russia (declining population, potentially unstable government, environmental degradation, critical lack of modern infrastructure, etc), and the comparatively much lower growth rate seen in Brazil. However, Brazil's lower growth rate obscures the fact that the country is wealthier than China or India on a per-capita basis, has a more developed and global integrated financial system and has an economy potentially more diverse than the other BRICs due to its raw material and manufacturing potential. In terms of List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita in 2007, Brazil ranks 64th, Russia 54th, China 105th and India 131th. By comparison South Korea currently ranks 34th, Singapore 21st, and Hong Kong 27th.

Brazil's stock market, the Bovespa, has gone from approximately 9,000 in September 2002 to over 70,000 in May 2008. Government policies have favored investment (lowering interest rates), retiring foreign debt and expanding growth, and a reformulation of the tax system is being voted in the congress. The British author and researcher Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is editing a new book titled 'Building a Future with BRICs' for European publisher Springer Verlag that examines the growth of the BRICs region and its effect on global sourcing. Contributors to the book include Nandan Nilekani, and Shiv Nadar, with publication scheduled for October 2007.

Criticism

Brazil's economic potential has been anticipated for decades, but it had until recently consistently failed to achieve investor expectations. Only in recent years has the country established a framework of political, economic, and social policies that allowed it to resume consistent growth. The result has been solid and paced economic development that rival its early 70's "miracle years", as reflected in its expanding capital markets, lowest unemployment rates in decades, and consistent international trade surpluses - that led to the accumulation of reserves and liquidation of foreign debt (earning the country a coveted investment grade by the S&P and Fitch Ratings in 2008). How long such positive factors will stay in place remains to be seen, specially with upcoming presidential elections and possible political changes.

Finally, India's relations with its neighbors, particularly with Pakistan, have always been frosty. Ten years ago, in 1998, there was a nuclear standoff between Pakistan and India. Border conflicts with Bangladesh and Pakistan, mostly over the longheld dispute over Kashmir, has further aggravated any economic ties. The BRIC countries have enormous populations of extremely impoverished people. This impedes progress by limiting government finances, increasing social unrest, and limiting potential domestic economic demand. Factors such as international conflict, civil unrest, unwise political policy, outbreaks of disease and terrorism are all factors that are difficult to predict and that could have an effect on the destiny of any country. Finally, the economic emergence of the BRICs will have unpredictable consequences for the global environment. Indeed, proponents of a set carrying capacity for the Earth may argue that, given current technology, there is a finite limit to how much the BRICs can develop before exceeding the ability of the global economy to supply.

Other critics suggest that BRIC is nothing more than a neat acronym for the four largest emerging market economies, but in economic and political terms nothing else (apart from the fact that they are all big emerging markets) links the four. Two are manufacturing based economies and big importers (China and India), but two are huge exporters of natural resources (Brazil and Russia). Two have growing populations (Brazil and India), and two have shrinking populations (China and Russia). Two are liberal democracies (Brazil and India), one is a limited, "sovereign democracy" (Russia), and one is a one-party state (China). The Economist, in its special report on Brazil, expressed the following view: "In some ways Brazil is the steadiest of the BRICs. Unlike China and Russia it is a full-blooded democracy; unlike India it has no serious disputes with its neighbors. It is the only BRIC without a nuclear bomb." The Heritage Foundation's "Economic Freedom Index", which measures factors such as protection of property rights and free trade ranks Brazil ("moderately free") above the other BRICs ("mostly unfree").

In a not-so-subtle dig critical of the term as nothing more than a shorthand for emerging markets generally, critics have suggested a correlating term, CEMENT (Countries in Emerging Markets Excluded by New Terminology). Whilst they accept there has been spectacular growth of the BRIC economies, these gains have largely been the result of the strength of emerging markets generally, and that strength comes through having BRICs and CEMENT.

References

• Emerging Markets Emerging Markets

Further reading

• Elder, Miriam, and Leahy, Joe, et al., Who’s who: Bric leaders take their place at the top table, Financial Times, London, September 25, 2008
• O'Neill, Jim, BRICs could point the way out of the Economic Mire, Financial Times, London, September 23, 2008, p.28.
• Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, 'Building a Future with BRICs: The Next Decade for Offshoring' (Nov 2007). ISBN 978-3-540-46453-2.

See also

• PIGS, another informal grouping consisting of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.
• BRIMC

External links

• Goldman Sachs: The BRICs Dream: Web Tour, July 2006
• Grant Thornton IBR - Emerging markets: reshaping the global economy. May 2008
• Grant Thornton IBR - Emerging markets (BRIC) focus. 2007
• Thomas Harr, Senior Analyst, Danske Bank: BRIC The Major Issues; June 2006
• Kristalina Georgieva, Country Director Russian Federation, World Bank: BRIC Countries in Comparative Perspective, 2006
• Article on Brics from the Danish National Bank with extensive statistics and comaprisons with G7 countries and Denmark
• Businessweek article on Goldman Sach's predictions regarding BRIC
• Goldman Sach's predictions for BRIC - pdf
• "Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project" - National Intelligence Council report and Forecast
• BBC Documentary Archive - four part audio documentary

Internal links