Jim O'Neill Hails Brics and Mints Investments Despite Emerging Market Turmoil

Banking industry guru Jim O'Neill says emerging market countries remain the best locations to invest in over the next decade, despite the recent financial turmoil.

O'Neill, a former Goldman Sachs economist who coined the acronyms, Bric and Mint, said that rapid growth and young populations would ensure these countries survive the current turbulence in emerging markets.

"The Bric and the Mint countries, if I'm right, over the next decade will ... shape the world economy's development," said O'Neill at the Africa Finance Corporation conference, reported Reuters.

"And if that's the case, they will be the most successful places in terms of investments too."

O'Neill labelled the Bric countries in 2001. He said that rapid economic growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China would shape the global economy for the near future.

Earlier this year, O'Neill singled out Mexico, Indonesia, Nigerian and Turkey and dubbed them the Mint group. Like the Brics before them, O'Neill says that the Mints will shape the next phase of the global economy.

However investors have lately withdrawn large swathes of capital from emerging markets.

At the end of 2010, Bric funds held €21bn. That figure fell to just €9bn by the end of 2013. Capital flight increased after the US Federal Reserve began tapering its bond buying programme.

"Fed tapering is why the masses are exiting emerging markets but that's because they're all like sheep," O'Neill said.

"Greed and fear are close cousins. People are in love with emerging markets one year, next minute they hate them."

Russia's currently facing sanctions over its annexation of Crimes while Nigeria and Turkey are embroiled in domestic political struggles. However, India and Indonesia had responded soundly to the Fed's tapering programme, O'Neill noted.

"What the whole episode of the last years shows is that emerging markets can't rely on generous external circumstances being persistent," he said. "You've got to do better."