BRICS yesterday, today and tomorrow: unpacking the peculiarities going forward from South African perspective

South Africa (SA) joined BRICS in 2010. The study explores the impact of its partnership with the BRICS group on mineral beneficiation in South Africa (SA) from its inception. The BRICS association, that had originally sought to deal with economic issues the founding members faced, became a full-fledged “umbrella organization”, which factors into its engagements a variety of issues including those of policy and polity, economy and culture and certainly the relations between the member countries. The study culminates in designing a Mineral Beneficiation Model proposed to South Africa with the aim to enhance the cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in mining; beyond that, it addresses issues pertaining to the aftermath of the association’s metamorphosis into BRICS Plus. In South Africa, up to 54 different minerals are extracted from its mines every day, of which a huge quantity is exported abroad to the detriment of local beneficiation entrepreneurs. The BRICS Business Council has previously identified three priorities: infrastructure development, mining beneficiation and mineral beneficiation. At that time, the mining sector contributed around 8% to the South African GDP, but there was not no agreement upon mineral beneficiation model. The involvement of BRICS partners in the extractive industry, however, required interventions to promote mining synergies. The authors sought to develop a model based on the data collected mainly through interviews and questionnaires. The study targeted 79 mining and related companies. A 30% response rate was achieved for the quantitative part of the study and 80% of participants, company representatives among them, were interviewed. The study has shown that South Africa needs to embrace beneficiation and achieve synergy effects when working with the other BRICS Plus members.