提出金砖四国(Bric)概念的教父开口了。高盛(Goldman Sachs)的吉姆•奥尼尔(Jim O'Neill)原本计划在假日期间保持沉默。但中国在圣诞前夜大胆地提出，要将南非加入他创造的这个首字母缩略词中，奥尼尔忍不住做出了回应。
据中国官方媒体报道，中国已邀请南非加入由快速增长的新兴市场国家组成的金砖四国，或者至少参加他们明年在中国举行的峰会。奥尼尔周三在致客户的研究报告中写道：“虽然这对南非显然是个好消息，但我不是太明白，金砖国家为什么要同意。”
如今身为高盛资产管理公司(Goldman Sachs Asset Management)董事长的奥尼尔，显然不想得罪任何人。但他在研究报告中含蓄地传递出了一条信息：金砖四国已成为一个政治概念，脱离了2001年他担任高盛首席经济学家时支撑他创造这个概念的经济逻辑。
他写道：
“当初创造这个词汇时，我没有料到会因此出现一个金砖四国领导人政治俱乐部。在这点上，两者的目的可能要区别对待，在这则新闻公布后更是如此。”
他表示，“南非有理由将自己视为领先的新兴国家”。但这只是为了缓和一下他更为尖锐的主要观点，即从经济角度来看，南非距离成为金砖四国的竞争者还非常遥远。
南非的经济规模为3500亿美元。而正如奥尼尔指出的那样：
“……这个规模相当小，无论是按照金砖四国的标准衡量，还是与其它一些国家相比。例如，俄罗斯的经济规模约为1.6万亿美元，是南非的近5倍。此外，印度目前的规模与俄罗斯相当。巴西目前的规模接近2万亿美元，中国的规模更是大得多，约为5.5万亿美元。”
他补充称，重要的是，还有许多来自所谓新兴世界的经济体规模超过南非。
“这包括印尼（约7000亿美元）、墨西哥（1.05万亿美元）、土耳其（7250亿美元）和韩国（1万亿美元）。这4个国家，以及金砖四国中的每个国家，在全球GDP中所占的比重都达到或超过了1%，我们会越来越多地把它们视为‘增长型经济体。’……我们很难看到南非如何能比得上这四个国家，更别提金砖四国了。”
哎哟！
奥尼尔调整了一下自己的政治触角。他指出，南非的角色“也许应该是作为非洲的代表，与金砖四国并列，因为整个非洲大陆的规模大致与印度或俄罗斯相当。”
但尼日利亚几乎不会接受。而奥尼尔教父似乎不得不接受的是，他正在失去对他提出的这个概念的控制权。
译者/梁艳裳
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001036272
The godfather has spoken – the godfather of the Bric group. Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs had planned to stay quiet over the holidays, but he couldn’t resist reacting to a gutsy move by China on Christmas Eve to insert South Africa into the acronym he coined.
According to reports in Chinese state media, China invited South Africa to join the four-letter club of fast-growing emerging markets – or at least to join a summit of theirs in China next year. In a note to clients on Wednesday, O’Neill wrote: “While this is clearly good news for South Africa, it is not entirely obvious to me as to why the Bric countries should have agreed.”
As chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management today, he clearly doesn’t want to offend anyone. But the implicit message of his note is that the Bric concept has become political and been unmoored from the economic logic that underpinned his creation of it in 2001 when he was Goldman’s top economist.
He wrote:
'When I created the acronym, I had not expected that a political club of the leaders of the BRIC countries would be formed as a result. In that regard, the purposes of the two might be regarded differently and more so after this news.'
He says “South Africa rightly sees itself as a leading emerging nation”. But this is just to soften the blow of his main point, which is that in economic terms South Africa is very far from being a Bric contender.
The size of its economy is $350bn. And as O’Neill notes:
'… this is quite small by not only BRIC standards, but compared to some others. For example, Russia is around $1,600 billion, nearly 5 times larger than South Africa. And, India is currently similar in size to Russia. Brazil is currently closer to $2 billion in size, while China is considerably larger at around $5,500 billion.'
Importantly, he adds, there are also a number of other economies from the so-called emerging world that are bigger than South Africa.
'This would include Indonesia (approximately $700 bn), Mexico ($1,050 bn), Turkey ($725 bn) and South Korea ($1,000 bn). These four nations, along with each of the BRIC economies, are all 1 pct or more of global GDP, and what we would increasingly think of as “Growth Economies.” … It is tough to see how South Africa matches up to these four countries, never mind the BRIC countries.'
Ouch.
Tuning his political antennae, O’Neill notes that a South African role “might be justified as Africa’s representation alongside the BRICs, as the continent as a whole is as about as large as India or Russia”.
But Nigeria is hardly going to accept that. And what O’Neill the godfather is going to have to accept, it seems, is that he is losing control of the concept he created.
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