BRICS vs. MENA Countries: Mapping Out Threats and Opportunities

The rising economic and political power of the BRICS countries cannot be neglected or ignored. Without doubt, it is difficult to believe that this growing power will have no effect on developing countries specially those belonging to the MENA region. Positive and negatives effects could be significant in both sides. How BRICSS’s emergence is affecting MENA economies is the purpose of this paper. Given the important potential of the BRICS countries and their worldwide influence, it is expected that economic ties between the MENA region and this group should be significant. Unfortunately we only have little understanding of this issue. These are the questions motivating the analysis in this work. Specially, we will focus on Trade and FDI as the main spillover channels through which the MENA region interacts with the BRICS group. How has the emergence of the BRICS impacted the MENAs’ trade and FDI flows is the purpose of this study.