The airport of Fortaleza, Brazil’s northeastern beachside city, looked like a parking lot this week for the powers that are changing the order of the world economy.
Official aircraft from Russia, South Africa and China were lined up on the tarmac, alongside an Air India jet, as the leaders of the so-called Brics nations arrived for their sixth and most important summit yet.
After first being brought together as an acronym invented by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs to brand his investment thesis about the growth opportunity in large emerging markets, the Brics are finding their political voice. This week, they agreed to their first bricks-and-mortar institutions, committing $100bn into a development bank and a pool of currency swaps.