Twenty years on, the Brics have disappointed

The writer is a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs and served as a UK Treasury minister in David Cameron's government It is 20 years since I [published a paper](//www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf) which formally grouped together the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China and coined the term "Brics" to describe them. I argued that since these countries were likely to continue their striking gross domestic product growth over the next decade, we urgently needed them to play a bigger role in global governance. With France, Germany and Italy in permanent economic and monetary union, I suggested their individual places in…