ON the last day of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the five founding states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) welcomed six new members: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The BRICS partnership now encompasses 47.3 per cent of the world’s population, with a combined global Gross Domestic Product (by purchasing power parity, or PPP,) of 36.4 per cent.