BRIC economies comprise 20 % of global economic output

The economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China constitute 20 per cent of the world economic output, a figure that is set to rise. It is already up four fold in the last decade, according to a report released yesterday by the International Monetary Fund.

The growth apart, the problems that have hit core economies had made the post-2008 going difficult one for the big four emerging markets.

Their combined stock-market value is down to a three-year low of 16 per cent of the total invested in global equities, Bloomberg data reaveals.

A Bloomberg report quoted Jim O'Neill , the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who is credited with coining the term BRIC in November 2001, as saying that the pull back in equity values had made BRIC market stocks ''irresistible''.

The last time the gap was that wide, in 2005, the MSCI BRIC Index shot up 53 per cent in 12 months, over double the gain in the MSCI All-Country World Index.

O'Neill told the newswire, unless a major collapse of those economies was in the offing, it was a huge opportunity for investors.