mr putin has sent his foreign minister sergei lavrov who was welcomed by a troupe of traditional dancers at the airport. the term brics was first mentioned by a british economist in new york who grouped together brazil, russia, india and china. they were four economies with a high potential for growth who all had large populations. even though the four nations had dramatically different political systems the term stuck and the bric countries held their first official meeting in 2009 in russia. a year later south africa joined and it became known as brics. they re touted by many as an emerging diplomatic rival to the g7 group of nations which is dominated by western democracies. live now tojohannesburg to speak to our correspondent nomsa maseko. we have some live pictures of the world leaders arriving. live now tojohannesburg to speak to our correspondent nomsa maseko.
leaders from the brics group of countries that s brazil, russia, india, china and south africa have gathered for a summit in south africa. china s leader xi jinping arrived in the country early in the morning and travelled to pretoria for talks with his south african counterpart, cyril ramaphosa. he s set to return to johannesburg for the summit, in what will be his fifth trip to south africa since he became president in 2013. the russian president, vladimir putin, will be attending by video link, due to a threat of arrest for alleged war crimes. mr putin has sent his foreign minister sergei lavrov who was welcomed by a troupe of traditional dancers at the airport. the terms bric was first used by a british economist in new york who grouped together brazil, russia, india and china. they were seen as four economies with a high potentialfor growth all with large populations. the four nations had completely different political systems but the term stuck and the bric countries