It’s not even a cohesive group. It was some dude at Goldman Sachs seeing a few countries grow quickly and even then it was more like brIC since Brazil and Russia saw growth only from resource extraction. South Africa decided they wanted to be part of the show despite shit growth and it became BRICS. They don’t do that much trade with each other and now outside of China, their growth is shit. If they want to become more economically integrated, go for it.