FACTBOX - Emerging BRIC powers and the new world order

Reuters - Brazil, Russia, India and China -- the so-called BRIC group of emerging powers -- have gained clout over the past decade as their economies grew faster than those of developed countries.

BRIC leaders will hold their first summit meeting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on June 16 to discuss the global financial crisis and reforms to the world's financial and trade institutions.

Here are some facts about the BRIC countries.

* The term BRICs was coined by U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs to describe the four key emerging economic powers, which the bank predicted would account for an increasingly greater share of the global economy.

* Together, the BRICs accounted for about 22 percent of the world economy in 2008, up from 16 percent a decade earlier, based on the widely followed measure of purchasing power parity.

* Real economic growth from 1999 through 2008 averaged 9.75 percent in China, 7 percent in both India and Russia, and 3.3 percent in Brazil.

* China, a global manufacturing center, held $727 billion in U.S. Treasuries at the end of 2008 and analysts estimate two-thirds of its roughly $2 trillion in foreign reserves are parked in dollar assets.

* Brazil is already an agricultural and mining powerhouse, and could become a major player in the world energy market after finding huge deep-sea oil reserves. It is the only BRIC country without nuclear weapons but it has the capacity to enrich uranium. After a five-year run of rapid growth, Brazil's economy slipped into recession in the first quarter.