First it was the Brics. For a while the Civets were in vogue. Now the Mints are the ones to watch. Confused? Well, once you know your acronyms it all becomes clear.
The Brics are Brazil, Russia, India and China – four emerging economies lumped together in 2001 by Jim O'Neill, then at Goldman Sachs, to show that western investors needed to take notice of what was happening in the post-cold war global economy.
Robert Ward, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, linked Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey but the Civets never really took off.
Now O'Neill is championing the Mints, a name first coined by the fund managers Fidelity, for what he thinks will be the second generation of emerging market pace-setters: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. The Mints share some common features.
They all have big and growing populations with plentiful supplies of young workers. That should help them grow fast when ageing and shrinking populations will lead inexorably to slower growth rates in many developed countries (and China) over the coming decades.
And they are nicely placed geographically to take advantage of large markets nearby, with Indonesia close to China, Turkey on the edge of the European Union and Mexico on America's doorstep.
Nigeria's geographical advantages are less immediately obvious, although it does have the potential to become the hub of Africa's economy at a time when the continent is enjoying a sustained period of strong expansion.
Strong growth in Asia has pushed up demand for the fuel and raw materials needed for industrialisation and three of the Mints – Mexico, Indonesia and Nigeria – are leading commodity producers.
Of the four, only Nigeria is not already a member of the G20 group of developed and developing countries. Even so, financial markets are wary about treating what is actually a disparate group of countries as a bloc. If the Brics are now a bit old hat, it is in part because their reputations are a little tarnished.
theguardian.com
The Brics are Brazil, Russia, India and China – four emerging economies lumped together in 2001 by Jim O'Neill, then at Goldman Sachs, to show that western investors needed to take notice of what was happening in the post-cold war global economy.
Robert Ward, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, linked Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey but the Civets never really took off.
Now O'Neill is championing the Mints, a name first coined by the fund managers Fidelity, for what he thinks will be the second generation of emerging market pace-setters: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. The Mints share some common features.
They all have big and growing populations with plentiful supplies of young workers. That should help them grow fast when ageing and shrinking populations will lead inexorably to slower growth rates in many developed countries (and China) over the coming decades.
And they are nicely placed geographically to take advantage of large markets nearby, with Indonesia close to China, Turkey on the edge of the European Union and Mexico on America's doorstep.
Nigeria's geographical advantages are less immediately obvious, although it does have the potential to become the hub of Africa's economy at a time when the continent is enjoying a sustained period of strong expansion.
Strong growth in Asia has pushed up demand for the fuel and raw materials needed for industrialisation and three of the Mints – Mexico, Indonesia and Nigeria – are leading commodity producers.
Of the four, only Nigeria is not already a member of the G20 group of developed and developing countries. Even so, financial markets are wary about treating what is actually a disparate group of countries as a bloc. If the Brics are now a bit old hat, it is in part because their reputations are a little tarnished.
theguardian.com
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