BRIC nations call off meeting at G20 as Brazil's Lula stays home

The leaders of Russia, India and China called off a meeting of so-called BRIC countries on the sidelines of the G20 summit on Saturday after Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stayed home to deal with severe flooding.    The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China accounts for about 16.5% of global gross domestic product and has been seeking more say in world financial institutions."There will be no BRIC leaders' meeting as president Lula was unable to attend because of the situation in Brazil," said a source in one of the BRIC delegations who requested anonymity.The BRIC term was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to describe the growing power of the four emerging market economies, although critics say they have vastly different and often competing political agendas.Goldman's models show China could supplant the United States as the world's biggest economy by 2027. Under that scenario, the world's biggest economies in 2050 would be China, the United States, India, Brazil and Russia.In an attempt to the turn the grouping's economic might into political power, the BRIC countries held their first official summit in 2009 in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Another summit followed in April in Brasilia.China is the biggest player in the BRIC grouping, with an economy likely to grow to $5.4 trillion this year, more than the three other members combined, according to IMF data. The BRIC countries have 43% of the world's population.Lula is missing the two-day summit of the Group of 20, which includes the world's rich and and emerging economies, after the flooding in northeastern Brazil, a political stronghold for his administration.