Developing countries overtake developed ones*

FOR the first time the BRICS countries have overtaken the G7 in terms of aggregate gross domestic product.  By the end of 2022, the GDP of the BRICS reached 31.5% of the global economy, while the share of the G7 was 30.7%.

The significant growth of economic power of the BRICS can easily be called a landmark event not only in the economy, but also in world history.
For several centuries, the leading industrial, financial and political centers of the world were located in the West. Europeans, and later the US, dominated development for a long period, and consequently were able to build a world order based on their own principles and interests.
There is no need to recall that the long period of domination of European colonial empires, and then of the American-centric West, was built on brutal exploitation of the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, the use of their natural resources and forced labor of the population of the conquered territories.

This world order was first shaken only in the second half of the 20th century, when the socialist camp, led by the USSR, initiated the process of decolonization and opened up new opportunities for former European colonies and dependent territories that had been liberated from centuries of oppression.

More recently, explosive economic development and the rising political power of many countries such as China, Russia, India and Brazil led to the formation of such organizations as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The appearance of these associations was largely due to the relapse of Western neo-imperialism, which compelled the new world powers to seek military and political allies and economic partners who, unlike the US or the European Union, do not seek to impose their values and interests on them. The new international organizations, with China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa at their core, representing more than half the world’s population, are not only implementing ambitious economic, energy and logistics projects, but also providing significant humanitarian and financial support to the world’s poorest countries.

BRICS members have been resolute in growing economic ties to effectively contribute to a new world order.
An important quality of the new alliances of developing countries is a fundamentally new approach to the principles of unification based on mutual respect of interests and the pursuit of equality. Such a policy has become the main trump card and motivation for the expansion of both BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which dozens of countries are now seeking to join. For example, leading regional powers with populations of over 500 million, enormous natural resources and fast-growing economies have already declared their desire to join the BRICS. If BRICS and the SCO expand with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Argentina and Indonesia, their power and influence will greatly surpass the combined power of the West, allowing them to determine the vector of human development both in the economy and technology, as well as in the political and humanitarian spheres.