Putin’s errors over Ukraine could herald big change for global finance | Jim O’Neill
During the brief heyday of Russia as a “Bric”, the acronym I dreamed up in 2001 to describe the possible future largest emerging economies in the world – Brazil, Russia, India and China – I would go to Russia reasonably frequently.
In 2008, I was asked by the organisers to give a special presentation on where Russia’s economy might be, by 2020, to the St Petersburg Summit, Russia’s own version of Davos. To my slight embarrassment, I hadn’t really appreciated that they would be quite irritated if I didn’t suggest that Russia was likely to be in the top five largest economies of the world by 2020, which I did realise afterwards, when my presentation and comments caused a bit of stir in the post-event coffee areas and media.
Essentially I suggested that given Russia’s challenging demographics, and that crude oil prices were unlikely to continue the one-way rise that had characterised the decade to date, Russia’s…
