BRICs There is a tradeoff between the opportunity in a market and the risk of that market. The tradeoff between risk and reward can be seen most clearly with the comparison between the United States and the developing market countries. The U.S. has the best credit rating -- a relatively imperfect measure of market risk since it only truly reflects the risk of default on sovereign debt -- and the highest score for business environment. The U.S. also has, however, the lowest expected future GDP growth rate. Thus, the ideal BRIC nation to enter would be one that has the lowest risk and highest growth rate, but given that they all have roughly the same risk, the growth rate is probably going to be the best option for market entry.

The PDI is an important consideration, since the different markets differ in their composition. While the EIU 5-year forecasts required additional subscriptions so the PDI information was inaccessible, the value of the PDI is that it provides a sense of the structure of the market and in particular the market potential for...

The larger two BRICs, India and China, have large middle class populations that should be driving growth over the coming five years. Russia's population is largely middle class already, which implies that growth in PDI might be slower. Brazil fits somewhere between -- it is structured much like India and China but is closer to Russia in population. The highest priority would be given to the market with the largest PDI per capita, and then the one with the fastest PDI growth. Red flags for markets to avoid would be markets with a declining PDI per capita.
Thus, the current PDI is important because it provide an indication of the raw size of the market. Market entry decisions can be based on this criterion alone, especially if the market is relatively easy to reach. The easiest by far of these countries to reach is Russia, which organized routes to market and a high degree of wealth concentration in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions. China also has a good transportation network but the country's wealth…