Globalization is the process of interaction and integration among the people, institutions, organisations and governments of different nations with the purpose of establishing a global village, driven by international trade and foreign investment and aided by the power of information technology, resulting in the opening of local and nationalistic outlooks to a wider perspective of an interconnected and more importantly, an interdependent world.
It is a process characterized by free transfer of goods, services, capital and knowledge across geographical frontiers. Globalization is connecting the world’s economies at an increasingly rapid rate, but the fact remains that all nations do not of course play an equal role in this process. Since 1945, the domain of international business activity has been largely dominated by the Triad i.e North America, the European Union, and Japan, till the late 1990s to say the least. The relative importance of these economies has changed over time, but even today the Triad account for just over half of world merchandise exports, almost two thirds of world exports of commercial services, and just over 80 percent of world Foreign Direct Investment outflows. The dominant position of the Triad in world economic activity is gradually declining, while countries like China and India are becoming gradually more important in the world economy. Since the turn of the millennium, the collective economical dominance and weightage of the Triad has declined by the rapid emergence of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,China and South Africa).
In 2001, Goldman Sachs coined the term ‘BRIC’ to describe the world’s four largest emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. By 2010, South Africa too joined this association of fastest growing economies that henceforth came to be known as BRICS. BRICS brings together five major emerging economies, comprising 43 percent of the world population, contributing to 30 percent of the global GDP and having a 17 percent share in global trade.These five economies have all been growing rapidly and, it is estimated that by 2039 the BRIC economies may have overtaken the G6 (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and USA) and that by 2050 they are likely to be the world’s largest group of economies. In light of these developments, let us look into a critical analysis of trade relations as well as economic state of three countries, namely Japan (one of the TRIADs), India (a member of BRICS) and an underdeveloped nation (better known as a Least Developed Country (LDC)) such as Cambodia.
