Ever alert to movements in the international economy, trying to pick up on new trends and opportunities that are apparently important to maritime trade, we have happened upon a sea of acronyms, which usually crop up to indicate a new emerging market. 

That’s how it was that a group of countries came to be known as BRIC, formed by the first letters of their names – Brazil, Russia, India and China. This group has had an impact on the first decade of the 21st century due to an economic growth superior to that recorded by superpowers, actually holding the world economy at reasonable levels, when in 2008/2009 it was affected by the body blow – to say the least – administered by Wall Street speculators. These incidentally – not to stray too far from the matter in hand, but not to delve too deeply into it at this moment – should be rigorously observed, for they are preparing new speculative moves, using the very same money that the US government gave to assist their weakened companies. The bill will be presented, and very soon...     

We commented in past columns on a group of countries that can be classified as a “second tier” in terms of development – not as important as the BRICs in forecast scenarios over the next few decades, but too important to be ignored. These are the Mavins – Mexico, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria and South Africa: a grouping for reference purposes only, not a consolidated group in itself, as in the case of the BRICs.  

Just as one of the BRICS may not come up to expectations in the coming years, it could happen that a country in this “second tier” distinguishes itself with a vigorous economy.   It would be a good business for the world not to waste opportunities, through mere prejudices about economic importance. 

Let’s turn now to two other groups of very different countries in the spotlight more for their failures, and which need redoubled business attention.

The first group is the Mercosur bloc, made up of several South American countries, but which is not much of a bloc, since the ties between its components are not making any advances, in fact they seem to be falling back. To participate in a community one needs to give up some individual advantages in order to gain collective compensations and this is what some governments do not understand. They are incapable of doing the minimum to consolidate the bloc.  

A negative acronym has appeared in the European Union, created by the English newspaper the Financial Times in 2008, predicting the same future for four countries: Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The first letters give us the pejorative PIGS, which lost its some of its force recently when, with the inclusion of Ireland, it became PIIGS. 

These are countries threatened with financial and fiscal collapse, even with the millions’ worth of aid received when they joined the European Union – aid with the precise purpose of allowing the implantation of development projects to make them equal to other member countries – or at least bring their economies to a reasonable enough level to permit European governance.
  
Internal problems, which cannot be discussed in this limited space, meant that their economies did not develop as expected, and the international crisis of the past few months just made the situation worse. So, the business world needs to stay tuned to events in these areas, just as it is important to pay attention to what happens in other areas of the world that are in a process of rapid transformation.

In this sea of acronyms, some can represent dangerous waters to sail in...