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Cape Town - The wind has clearly gone out of the sails of Brics, Dr Martyn Davies, managing director of Frontier Advisory Deloitte, said at an investment summit hosted by Momentum Investments on Thursday.
Frontier Advisory Deloitte is a research, strategy and advisory firm that specialises in emerging markets.
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To him it is significant that global investment banking, securities and investment management firm Goldman Sachs has closed its Bric fund, which held investments in Brazil, India, China and Russia.
"Investors believed the economy is shifting to developing countries with Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as the new power block. But what is Brics? What is the glue that binds it together? It surely must be beyond just not being Western," said Davies.
"We have been living in artificial economic times with currency manipulations and the demand for commodities. Only three countries did not grow in 2007, for instance, namely Zimbabwe, the DRC and Fiji. About 114 countries grew at more than 5% that year. That led to massive global liquidity and emerging markets were catching up to the developed world."
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He said of the Brics countries Russia and Brazil are now in decline and SA is a stationary state. China is a different story, though.
"China's confidence is supreme despite its slower economic growth. Don't sweat China, I think China is doing fine," said Davies.
As for India, he said after independence it took 66 years - about three generations - to remove the ruling party which was following "artificial fantasy economics".
"India is never going to be another China," said Davies.
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