Check this extract from wikipedia.org on BRIC thesis :-
BRIC or BRICs are terms used to refer to the combination of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.General consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a thesis of the Goldman Sachs investment bank. The main point of this 2003 paper was to argue that the economies of the BRICs are rapidly developing and by the year 2050 will eclipse most of the current richest countries of the world.
Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC)is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. The thesis was proposed by Jim O’Neill, global economist at Goldman Sachs. These countries are forecast to encompass over forty percent of the world’s population and hold a combined GDP [PPP] of 14.951 trillion dollars. On almost every scale, they would be the largest entity on the global stage
