MOSCOW, June 8. /TASS/. BRICS countries’ joint GDP will soon surpass the same indicator of the G7 countries, State Duma’s International Affairs Committee head Alexey Pushkov said on Monday.

"The West was very skeptical about BRICS. Skeptics are now confounded. BRICS will soon surpass G7 in terms of GDP," Pushkov wrote in his Twitter microblog.

BRICS is an association of five major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — founded in June 2006. The first official summit took place in June 2009 in Russia’s Yekaterinburg. Since then, meetings at the highest level are held annually in member-countries. The last summit took place in Brazil. On April 1, Russia accepted BRICS presidency. On June 8, BRICS first parliamentary summit opened in Moscow.