Narayanamurthy Vijayakumar, Perumal Sridharan and Kode Chandra Sekhara Rao
allowing the transfer of labour from the countryside into the more productive urban economy. In
Brazil, not much should be expected from further urbanisation, as the country is already more highly
urbanised than many of the developed countries in the world. However, the demographic profile of
Brazil is relatively favourable and benefitable from a 20 per cent increase in the population of working
age between the year 2005 and 2025. The Russian population of working age is already in decline and
little help will come from ‘surplus rural labour’ due to a high urbanisation ratio. From a purely
demographic point of view, India and South Africa face the most promising prospects, combining solid
population growth and a lower degree of urbanisation. Though this situation may pose challenges of its
own (in terms of urban development and infrastructure), but definitely be supportive for growth
dynamics. The recent capital accumulation trends favour China and India. Assuming that investment
ratios do not change dramatically over the next few years, China and India face much brighter
prospects than Brazil, Russia and South Africa. Currently domestic investment ratios are around 40 per
cent and 30 per cent of GDP in China and India, respectively, where as an investment ratio of Brazil,
Russia and South Africa account to 20 per cent to 23 per cent of GDP. Russia and South Africa
probably increase its investment ratio because of large savings generated by the commodity boom.
Brazil, having a more modest increase their domestic savings may drive a moderate up-tick in
investment ratio. It seems that Chinese and Indian capital accumulation will proceed at a much faster
pace than Brazil and Russia.
The relative and absolute economic importance of BRICS is expected to continue to rise for the
foreseeable future. In terms of economic growth, China has been outperforming the other four countries
by a wide margin over the past thirty years. Over the past decade, real GDP growth averaged 10 per
cent in China, 7 per cent both in India and Russia, 4.6 per cent in South Africa and 3.3 per cent in
Brazil. In general, high savings rate, low level of urbanisation, low per capita income, higher export-
orientation, manufacturing-based development strategy underpinned by strong investment in
infrastructure and education will combine to sustain BRICS countries as superior economies of world.
Thus, BRICS may become the largest economies of the world in the upcoming decades.
The BRICS countries have been the predominant recepients of FDI during the last decades.
However, the evolution of FDI inflow shows very distinct trajectories for the five countries. Until 1984,
Brazil was the major FDI recipient country among the BRICSs, overtaken by China in 1985 and since
then China continues to be a major destiny of FDI, especially in the automotive and consumer durables
sectors. China became the world major recipient of FDI in the 1990s, matching with country’s efforts
to integrate with the world economy. Many Multinational Companies have moved their operations to
China to take advantage of its low labor costs and huge domestic market. South Africa and India
received an almost constant and small part of the world total FDI flows during last two decades. India
has many restrictions to FDI inflows, where, public enterprises dominate in many key sectors. Equally,
the low and constant inflow applies to the Russian Federation since 1990. It is also worth of pointing
out that the type of FDI received by each country has been significantly different and that the type
depends on policies of the recipient countries. For instance, some of BRICS countries like Brazil,
Russian Federation and South Africa liberalized their economies in more unconditional way and
received more portfolios of FDI. For these countries, FDI was directed to the productive sectors, mostly
by way of acquisitions of local firms. China and India have not liberalised the Capital account, where
the FDI flows seem to be concentrated on ‘Green Field Investments’ in new production capacity.
Thus, the BRICS countries appear to have prosperity of economic and social development in the
forth coming decades, if these countries form a formal union like European Union, ASEAN, G6 and
G8 etc, and pool their resources. The economic growth will be tremendous and can throw competition
and challenges towards the developed countries.
However, the current flow of FDI into BRICS is extremely complex and subject to various factors
related to the competitive environment in the home and host countries. In this context, this study
intends to examine the major determinants of FDI flows into BRICS countries. There are several
studies contributing to the economic literature on the determinants of FDI.
The existing literature includes a number of Surveys, Case studies (see: Lankes and Venables,
1996; Meyer, 1998; Boros-Torstila, 1999; Resmini, 2000) and econometric studies (see: Lansbury et
al., 1996; Wang and Swain, 1995; Hollond and Pain, 1998; Wood ward et al., 1997). There are some
empirical studies formulated cross sectional analysis and found a set of explanatory variables that
determine FDI flows (see: Agarwal, 1980; Gastanaga et al, 1998; Markusan and Maskus, 1999; Love
and Hidalgo, 2000; Lipsey, 2000; Chakraborti, 2001; Moosa, 2002; Beven and Estrin, 2000; Singh and
Jun, 1995; Sahoo, 2006; and Nunes et al., 2006 etc).
However, the above mentioned studies are investigated for the transition economies and
developing economies as well as for groups like ASEAN and European Union using short time series
of data. In all the above, presently available research literature pertaining to BRICS countries is still