South Africa’s joining of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China), to create BRICS, will benefit the country provided South Africa’s approach to the group is realistic and not overoptimistic.

“South Africa’s invitation to join the BRIC summit [in April] can, deservedly, be celebrated as a symbolic and diplomatic triumph,” said Standard Bank senior analyst Simon Freemantle. “[But] the manner in which South Africa is able to benefit from BRIC membership will hinge greatly on the approach it takes to the summit in April, and others which will result in the future.”

BRIC has an “amorphous nature,” is “overtly political,” and suffers from “pervasive internal divergences [which] will render finding common ground abundantly elusive,” he pointed out.

“To be sure, these ambiguities and challenges needn’t render South Africa’s accession to the BRIC summit futile,” affirmed Freemantle. “Yet the propensity to view South Africa’s invitation to attend the BRIC summit as an end in itself is flawed. In essence, South Africa’s task has just begun.”

So, what must South Africa do to reap real benefits from joining BRIC? It is important that the country focus its negotiations within BRICS on its domestic growth priorities, using the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 as guidelines.

Niche synergies should be pursued, such as agriculture and food security, green technology, infrastructure and mineral beneficiation.

South Africa must also ensure that any BRICS agreements are based on the principle of reciprocity, so that any concessions by this country are matched by concessions to South Africa by the other countries.

South Africa must also robustly defend its interests within BRICS and not be scared to stake out a position on, for example, the valuation of currencies (and, in particular, the Chinese yuan), which affects the performance of the rand on the foreign exchange markets.

Furthermore, South Africa must not allow its well established multipolar foreign policy to become distorted by an over-focus on BRICS: the US and European Union remain South Africa’s most important trading and investment partners.

Last but not least, South Africa needs to remember that its invitation to join the BRIC countries is based on its perceived ability to act as a representative for Africa.

Pretoria thus needs to use its membership of BRICS to try and develop consensus between key (not necessarily all) African countries on development objectives and how BRIC trade and investment can be used to promote them, while, at the same time. encouraging its BRIC partners to provide more development aid to the continent.

Freemantle addressed a seminar organised by the South African Institute of International Affairs in Pretoria on Tuesday