The Bric summit, which convenes for the first time today in Yekaterinburg, Russia, is almost certainly the first multilateral nation bloc to be created by an investment bank's research analysts and their sales team.

Jim O'Neill, Goldman Sachs chief economist, coined the acronym in 2001 to describe the largest of the world's developing economies – Brazil, Russia, India and China – and explain how they were going to shape globalisation in the next 50 years, when he predicted they would come to dominate the global economy.

Chief among his findings was that by the start of this century, the global economy could no longer be summarised simply with reference to the large advanced economies. Nor could global policy issues, such as currencies, trade imbalances or climate change, continue to be stitched up in deals done by the the Group of Eight – the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada and Russia.