Steep fall in world markets. Major investment banks up for grabs. What next, you may well ask. The steep recession triggered-off by the US sub-prime crisis is just about three months old, but it is already plain that the Bric economies must haul the OECD out of the morass. But even if that is clear, certain other aspects need a rethink.

Out of those, the ones, which merit serious consideration relate to the (altogether) different role which is being played now by fast-growing emerging economies such as the ones belonging to the Bric, Next 11 and some others. Their new role as ?locomotives? of the world economy, and the OECD in particular, needs to be re-thought.

The Bric, for instance, can no longer be that just by maximising the growth of their manufactured exports to erstwhile OECD locomotives like Germany and the US. Nor can they take for granted the latter?s absorption of developing economy emigrants to staff the service sectors. Also gone, accordingly, is the assurance of growth in remittance repatriations.

In short, we are quite a distance from the days when development used to be measured by an economy?s export-to-GDP ratio. It is now the turn of developing economies, and the Bric in particular, to absorb developed country exports and host FDI. Plus, they must do both alongside sustained rises in productivity and prudent fiscal policies. Also, they must do all of those despite the failure of the WTO?s latest, Doha, Round. They must enter into free-trade-agreements (FTAs) and institutionalise monetary cooperation with regional, or other like-minded, economies.

As for the emerging reality on the ground, the IMF reports two basic alterations in global economic growth. The first one of them is that emerging economies have indeed started playing the role of growth-drivers in the world economy.

China alone has accounted for 25% of global expansion over the past five years while the remaining Bric economies filled in another 25%. The four of them account for half of the total expansion of the world economy. (Vietnam, which belongs to the Next 11 grouping, may not have Bric membership but grew by 8.5% in 2007. That makes it, an Asean member, the third fastest of all economies, after China and India.) In sum, the emerging and developing economies together account for 66% of global expansion.

What is perhaps even more important is how the density of trade flows has altered. Almost 50% of all emerging and developing economy exports are in the nature of intra-developing economy trade. The most significant instances of that are to be found in Asia?with Japan and China also playing definitive roles in intra-regional trade, investment and monetary cooperation. (It is commonest to find Vietnam fielding FDI from China as well as Taiwan in those lines of skilled mass-manufacturing that require more screwdriving than R&D capabilities.)

Meanwhile, FDI hosts amongst the Bric and other emerging economies have been helping out OECD firms by installing back-stops to job losses in the home (donor) economies. That applies when jobs are saved at home because a firm can ride out depressed and stormy markets by reaping (domestically unattainable) efficiencies in overseas unit(s).

Those surpluses can then be ploughed back as profits and applied to the task of supporting less efficient units at home. The absence of emerging economy FDI possibilities would have meant many more job losses since, then, the firm would continue to be loss-making overall, and be forced either to petition for closure, or re-organise under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

Besides, Bric and other emerging economies are also doing their bit by investing in buy-outs of submerging OECD firms. India itself has been supplying much of such FDI and foreign acquisitions jumped from almost nought to $10.7 billion by the first quarter ending of fiscal 2007-08. That sum?used to fund the takeover of 34 foreign companies?was two thirds of the total projected FDI outflow for that fiscal. Also, the total, $15 billion, sum of outflows was greater than the FDI inflows ($12 billion) for the year. That in fact represented a continuation of a rush by Indian corporates to invest abroad, starting 2000. Indian companies concluded 50 foreign deals (worth less than $1 billion, however) in 2000. But that went up to $23 billion by 2006?a sum far in excess of the total FDI entering India. Tata Group has been India?s biggest investor, with a presence in 55 countries (and 35% of revenue from external sources.) Developing economies in which it has invested include Bermuda and Singapore; OECD member-states include the US, Britain and South Korea.

FDI from other notable Indian companies include Videocon, Dr Reddy?s, Ranbaxy, ONGC, Suzlon Energy, Hindalco Industries, and United Spirits. Even less fortunate, backward economies?like many in Africa?are being boosted by the growth appetite of the

Bric and other emerging economies. Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton are on record as saying that China is the economy to watch. Its record of double-digit growth means that its activity levels not only con-tinue to ramp up energy demand, but that it is also amongst the biggest importers of ?base metals?.

Meanwhile, India?s non-oil imports include aluminium, copper, iron ore and many base metals. Their imports have held up despite a slight slow-down following the country?s attempts to douse inflation. And it is the commodity import performance of these two that has ensured growth for Brazil and Russia?the two remaining Bric economies: their commodity exports have held up well thanks to continuing growth in China and, to a lesser extent, India. Clearly, this is a group that is well able to look after itself, plus their own. Even their stock-markets exhibit a similar contrarian trend and Bovespa (the Brazilian stock-market index) attained new heights in July 2008. Indeed, that was when Bovespa?s aggregate market capitalisation overtook India?s?the first time it has done so in six years. But that traces back mostly to 2000, following which the demand for industrial metals really surged?a lift-off led by Bric sibling China.

For the latter, that marked the beginning of a gallop towards increases in base-metal imports and in its projected share of world metal demand. For instance, China?s forecast share of world iron ore demand is expected to be 63% (by 2011). Projections for other metals are almost equally staggering: aluminium (35% of total demand by 2011), copper (35%), zinc (25%) and nickel (25%). Even Africa is being showered by Chinese funds to unlock the Dark Continent?s metal resources?something that is in line with a recent World Bank report noting how emerging economy financiers are targeting Africa: their investment commitments in the region attained the $8 billion level by 2006, or eight times more than the sums being invested until 2004.

The logistics will be just as demanding since the growth in demand for copper alone will require a 62% rise in global output by 2015. Bric zinc demand will likewise need a 79% increase in global output by 2015.

The Bric and other strongly growing emerging economies, therefore, have hardly ?decoupled? from the US or OECD as a whole: it is only that their relationship. Instead of waiting for handouts and better market access in developed markets, they now play a dominant role in the growth of world products and productivity.