Today in Global Small Business: Laurel Delaney's Global Trade Trends Report 2025 (wegginar® 1/8/25)

©Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global®.  All rights reserved.

What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Poise your global business for growth in 2025 by attending Laurel Delaney's Global Trade Trends Report 2025 wegginar® on 1/8/25 (free of charge and learn what's important as you navigate the new global landscape).  Register here.
• 2025:  A year of logistics volatility.
• Quote of the week: “One thing we have lost, that we had in the past, is a sense of progress, that things are getting better. There is a sense of volatility, but not of progress." – Daniel Kahneman
• Top 5 risks for 2025: U.S. uncertainty, global trade war, digital attacks.
• BRICS+ and the redefinition of global trade in 2025.
• Redefining global trade and economic growth in 2025. 

Thick or Built as BRICS?

iStock/Thinkstock

Welcome new member South Africa into the BRIC club.

The four-nation group — Brazil, Russia, India and China — is a collection of what many economists see as the world’s most important emerging markets. Each has a gross domestic product well above $1 trillion and together they make up almost half the world’s population.

To match up with even the smallest BRIC country, Russia, South Africa would have to quadruple its economy.

Is South Africa a good investment destination -- the next new frontier?  Read the entire article here.

A Coordinated Stance on Global Affairs

iStock/Thinkstock

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says:

“When the BRICS ‘five’ really gets going, its influence on the global economy and politics will be quite significant,” Putin wrote in a campaign article on foreign policy in Moskovskie Novosti published on Monday. Putin, 59, plans to return to the Kremlin after the presidential elections next month.

According to Putin, BRICS countries:  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have a combined population of 3 billion people and are responsible for more than 25 percent of the world's GDP.

Learn more about what Putin has to say on "world order" here.