The BRICS bloc underwent its first expansion in over a decade to include six more economies: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina. Together with the "old" members, China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, the group of developing nations accounted for 36.4% of the global GDP, measured at purchasing power parity, in 2022. The aggregate GDP of the expanded bloc is projected to increase in the coming years, with the gap between BRICS+ and the G7 also widening, eventually reaching USD 24th in 2028. Last year, this gap was a bit less than USD 10tn. Even though the contribution of the new members is rather small - they accounted for roughly 13% of the BRICS+ GDP in 2022 - they will still contribute to the economic expansion of the group. In terms of real GDP growth rate for instance, Ethiopia is set to expand at the fastest rate in 2024 (6.4%), closely followed by India and China, according to IMF's projections. The G7 on the other hand (United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada) is set to grow by 1.1% in 2024.

Despite the ambitions of the BRICS+ governments to position themselves as a counterweight to the "West", the group is still far from catching up in terms of GDP per capita. In G7, GDP per capita was over USD 60,000 in 2022, while the highest figure in the BRICS+ group was USD 38,000 in the United Arab Emirates (latest data as of 2020). The standard within the bloc varies significantly. For example, India, which is projected to surpass China in terms of population in 2023, reported GDP per capita of only slightly over USD 2,000 last year.

Population-wise the share of BRICS+ is set to shrink, with China being the driver of the decline. Ethiopia' population, on the other hand, is projected to increase by almost 100mn people in the longer term, to reach 214mn in 2050, according to the United Nations forecasts.

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