While there are plenty of emerging market opportunities to invest in outside of the BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China are considered to be the driving force of the new global economies. These nations are rich in resources, are not saddled with debt and are home to a young and increasingly educated population. The BRIC economies are predicted to enjoy boom years for investors and many believe that these economies hold real potential, looking 5 to 20 years into the future, compared to Western economies.

If you want to invest in the BRIC regions, whether it is via a high-risk country-specific fund or a more generalist emerging markets fund, one way to do this is to drip-feed your money into a fund that gives you exposure to a wide range of equities. Regular savings can take some of the risk out of investing by allowing you to buy more when prices are low and less when they are rising.

In all cases you need to be comfortable with the wide range of risks, not just day-to-day volatility, but also markets closing, expropriation, currency risk and political turmoil, to name just a few. The fortunes of these economies can fluctuate, which results in big swings in stock markets. Investors also need to understand that there are political risks in some of these countries, which can have a negative impact on markets.

Few financial concepts have caught on as quickly as investing in the BRIC economies, which are well known as a symbol of the shift in worldwide economic power away from the developed G7 economies in the direction of the developing world.