Emerging markets foreign ministers to meet in Moscow in spring

NEW YORK, September 26 (RIA Novosti) - The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China or the so called BRIC countries will hold an independent meeting in Moscow in the spring to strengthen cooperation, Russia's foreign minister said.

"We gave an invitation and it was accepted," Sergei Lavrov said on the sidelines of the ongoing 62nd Session of UN General Assembly, adding that the BRIC countries usually met within the framework of the United Nations.

Lavrov said that UN representatives from the BRIC countries in New York, Vienna, Geneva, and Nairobi will meet at least once each two months to consider cooperation in various international organizations and at multilateral forums.

The term BRIC was first encountered in 2003 in a thesis published by the Goldman Sachs investment bank that named Brazil, Russia, India and China as the most rapidly developing economies in the world.

According to the thesis, by the year 2050 BRIC will overshadow most of the richest countries of the world. Currently, the overall gold and currency reserves of the four countries are estimated at $1.3 trillion.

The first meeting of BRIC took place in 2006 in New York within the framework of the UN General Assembly session.