BRIC Countries

BRIC is an acronym which refers to a group of countries including BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA and CHINA. The acronym was coined by Jim O' Neill in a 2001 paper entitled "Building Better Global Economic BRICs".  It was estimated that these four countries could become the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. These countries don’t have any union like European Union or so but these countries have the potential to become economic powers in future. Goldman Sachs has argued that, since the four BRIC countries are developing rapidly, by 2050 their combined economies could eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world. These four countries, combined, currently account for more than a quarter of the world's land area and more than 40% of the world's population. Due to lower labor and production costs, many companies also cite BRIC as a source of foreign expansion opportunity. 
One more country, South Africa, has been added to this group recently. So now this group is called as BRICS.