The BRICS cooperation mechanism is becoming increasingly important.
Tips
history
BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 (Brazil, Russia, India, China). South Africa joined in 2010 making it BRICS. The Chinese rendering 金砖 (gold brick) is a felicitous phonetic+semantic match for BRICS/BRIC.
mistakes
When used for the bloc it is proper noun 金砖 (Jīnzhuān) — often extended as 金砖国家 'BRICS countries' or 金砖峰会 'BRICS summit'. The literal 'gold brick' sense is a separate common noun.
