She's a BRIC House

Discussion about the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, has become widespread as global trade continues to see growth in the near future. Doug Barry, the Director of Marketing and Communication at the United States Commercial Service was able to emphasize this growth in his article Building with BRICS. These countries are on everyone's radar when looking for potential market growth and investment. They have proved their worth so far in the past couple years and there doesn't seem to be much slow down in the next decade. Now the only question is where to focus the most attention and what actions are being made to ensure we don't miss out on a great opportunity.

Within the BRIC countries, Russia has been the slowest to meet its full potential when compared with the others. It has had some minor setbacks including a weak currency and natural disasters that have temporarily separated it from the pack. The approach to take now is see the value in each individual country within the BRIC group and leverage their strengths and weaknesses. Each country has their own potential in various sectors and the challenge now is to figure out where the true value lies. Each country is going to continue expanding and there is no time to waste in figuring out where outside countries like the United States can get their hand in.

Within the United States, service providers and manufacturers along with other business sectors are benefiting from the continual focus on the BRIC countries. The National Export Initiative (NEI) is focused on growing United States exports along with domestic employment and goes hand in hand with what the BRIC countries can offer. This geared focus will benefit both sides in the future and make for an enormous market share with multiple opportunities for growth.

One task under the NEI is to identify GEMS, or Growth in Emerging Metropolitan Sectors. This puts focus on where the large populations in each country reside and puts efforts into working with their counterparts to create growth inside and outside of the company. In turn this will increase the overall global growth. This could be very beneficial if businesses can get in with the right BRIC markets and expand, which is slowly starting to occur. The U.S Commercial Service of the Commerce Department has contacts in each BRIC market and can be used as a direct resource if needed. There are also other resources including websites and industry contact information that could further benefit any business sector looking to expand in a BRIC market.

These resources and the attention to each individual BRIC country will continue to increase the future growth of these markets. The potential and money is there, all we need to do is make sure we take the necessary steps in ensuring we are not left out of the race.