Comerţul exterior al ţărilor BRIC în perioada 1997-2008. Perspective[The external trade of the BRICs during 1997-2008. Perspectives]

At the beginning of 2001, the experts of the Goldman Sachs Research Group launched a new acronym in the field of world economy: BRIC. This abbreviation represents the group of four countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China and has generated a long list of quantitative, as well as qualitative researches. Among these BRIC researches, only few examine both trade in goods and services, in relation with developed countries. As a result, in order to deepen the analysis in this direction, the present paper focuses on the BRIC’s increasing role in the world trade in goods and services during 1997-2008, in comparison with the G-7, starting from a quantitative analysis. At the level of trade in goods, taking into consideration the export structure, the BRIC countries can be divided into two complementary groups: on the one side, there are China and India, whose exports are dominated by manufactures, on the other side there are Brazil and Russia, with commodities’ share in exports surpassing that of manufactures. From the viewpoint of export propensity, Brazil and India are less inclined to export their goods, while China and Russia are prone to export. These features, among other factors, reflect the evolution of trade balance of the analysed countries: India records trade deficits, while China and Russia, and to a lesser extent Brazil, have trade surpluses. Among the BRIC countries, China recorded the biggest “leap” of its share in world trade: from circa 3% in 1997, to approximately 8% in 2008. BRIC’s share in global trade in goods grew from 6% in 1997, to about 13% in 2008, bringing down the difference between its share and G-7’s share from circa 41 percentage points in 1997 to 24 percentage points in 2008. In the field of services, China is the main exporter and importer among the BRIC countries. Nevertheless, it records large trade deficits, and services continue to have a small share in its trade. This characteristic is valid for Russia and Brazil as well. By contrast, in India’s case, services have a share of about 37% in its total exports (goods plus services) and 24% in its total imports, these shares being even above those recorded by the USA. BRIC’s share in global trade in services grew from 5% in 1997, to about 10% in 2008, bringing down the difference between its share and G-7’s share from circa 45 percentage points in 1997 to 31 percentage points in 2008. Putting face to face the results recorded by the BRIC countries in trade in goods and those recorded in trade in services, it is obvious that China, Brazil and Russia are more competitive in trade in goods than in trade in services, while India is the most competitive emergent country in trade in services. The FDI structure in these countries, determined by their investment attractiveness, has played a major role in this evolution. Concerning the actual economic and financial crisis, its impact on the BRIC countries in terms of trade is not dramatic. Nevertheless, the aid packages adopted by these countries underline a change of strategy and orientation with accent on the internal market. The value-added of this empirical analysis to the existent ones is the comparative approach of trade in goods and trade in services of Brazil, Russia, India and China, at the aggregate level. At the same time, it underlines the BRIC’s increasing role in the world trade in goods and services during 1997-2008, in comparison with the G-7, starting from a quantitative analysis.