FWIW, the notion of BRIC came from a Goldman trader who was looking for a way to 'package' investment in those nations. SA came later.
Am I the only person who thinks it's medium-hilarious that they're now pushing to have their own reserve currency? At a minimum, a reserve currency needs to be from a country with an economy largely disconnected from the global one, not dependent on imports or exports, making it less interested in manipulating that currrency. The US has been protecting 'blue water' any-to-any' trade since the end of WWII (part of the Bretton Woods accords) but is not reliant on exports to support its economy. Part of what brought European and Japanese manufacturing back post-war was the Americans granting permission to sell into the US market. Nixon / Kissinger providing the same is what peeled China out of the Soviet block.
Now that Russia is essentially trading in Yuan (arguably one of the most manipulated currencies on the globe) I wonder how that's going for them...