From BRICS to CIVETS to MINTs - what's in an acronym?

Acronyms have a tendency of being unfamiliar and at times even troublesome intruders in our daily working lives. Think about the amount of times you’ve been in a meeting when someone has casually dropped an acronym you’ve never heard of into a conversation or presentation. For them it’s industry common-speak, while for the rest of us, it either means something else or nothing at all. Pretty much every industry has at least one ‘culprit’ (including our own!) Ask most people outside the direct investment world what an IPA is and you’ll either be told it’s an India Pale Ale – especially if you’re in the UK or North America – or one of a whole raft of international trade associations for industries beginning with the letter ‘P’.

Some acronyms however are ubiquitous and have been highly successful: think COB (close of business) and FYI (for your information), to give just two examples. Acronyms are also increasingly being used to describe country groupings. The most famous one which endures today is the BRIC(S). Coined by the Goldman Sachs Economist Jim O’Neill in 2001, it originally stood for Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was so successful an acronym that it spawned a fully-fledged political grouping with the same name, and since 2010, the political grouping has expanded to include South Africa (hence the ‘S’ in BRICS).

Like many buzz terms, it wasn’t long before some people started looking for alternatives to act as a rival or at least an alternative to the original. The Financial Times has a blog entited ‘Beyond the Brics’, and since 2001 we have seen a host of new acronyms grab the attention of the global economic community, from CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) to the more recently-created MINT economies (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey). The latter, another Jim O’Neill creation, has recently been the subject of much coverage in the media – it has even been the inspiration for a recent BBC Radio 4 series.

All of these acronyms were coined in an effort to condense a collection of high-potential economies into a headline-grabbing buzzword, and whether it was intended or not, some of these acronyms can phonetically be linked with positive concepts: ‘BRICS’ could be associated with ‘strong’, ‘solid’ or ‘robust’, while to many, ‘MINT’ will imply a degree of freshness.

Acronyms have also been used to describe countries with major common challenges however – think of the ‘PIGS’ markets (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) which was commonly used during the Eurozone crisis a few years back.

But if we focus on acronyms as a tool for positive messages about country groupings, then I thought it would be an interesting (and light-hearted) exercise to come up with a few new ones. Since companies often cite proximity to markets as a top determinant when choosing where to invest, countries – especially smaller ones – arguably have an interest in considering how a catchy new acronym linking them to their neighbours or other countries nearby might be an effective marketing tactic. No scientific approach was taken in developing the examples below (although a rationale for each has been given). Other countries could equally warrant inclusion in some of these from a rationale perspective, but I have focused on a combination of acronym meaning and market rationale here.

The ‘VIP’ economies (Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines)

Rationale: All three South-East Asian countries have large populations and high GDP growth levels.

The ‘SAFE’ economies (Switzerland, Austria, Finland and Estonia)

Rationale: All four European countries are broadly very peaceful and safe countries, both from a political and economic perspective.

The ‘RISE’ economies (Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia)

Rationale: These African countries all have GDP growth rates of 8% or higher and feature in the world’s top 20 countries for GDP growth. They are also countries which have moved on from a highly violent or troubled recent past.

Of course I have no delusions that these contributions will become widely (or even remotely) used. If they ever do, remember where you first saw them!

This piece is based on a blog post I wrote for my previous employer, OCO