BRIC nations are no longer emerging markets as they have become growth markets for world economy, Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman Jim O'Neill said.
"I don't think of Brazil, Russia, India and China, as emerging markets. It is an insult and inopportune. And in any case, they are different markets," O'Neill, who invented the term 10 years ago, told
China Daily in an interview ahead of BRICS summit on Thursday.
An expanded version of BRIC, BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the leaders of which are meeting at Sanya in China for the two-day summit beginning Wednesday.
"The BRIC economies are increasingly the major story for the world economy, they have lifted the world economy's growth trend from 3.7 per cent to 4.5 per cent in my view," O'Neill said while preferring to use the old acronym BRIC even though South Africa has joined the group making it the BRICS.
South Africa is attending the summit for the first time.
On South Africa's entry to the fast-growing countries club, O' Neill said that with $350 billion
economy, South Africa was smaller than the BRIC members.