SOUTH Africa's biggest competitive advantage in the Brics group of countries is its people, Absa Group chief executive Maria Ramos says

Ramos was speaking at a business breakfast hosted by Wits Business School in Parktown, Johannesburg, on Friday.

Ramos said the country needed to look at the opportunities created by being part of the developing nations.

Brics is an acronym referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development.

"What is important is whether or not we can take full advantage in this group of countries," Ramos said.

"Our competitive advantage is more than the mineral resources we have ... it is our people. What you take from the ground is limited. People are not.

"We have a young population. We don't have an ageing population. If we don't educate, skill and think globally, we are not going to create jobs for those people," she said.

South Africa was formally admitted into Brics last month.

"One of the important views of Brics is to expand trade cooperation between the countries. The Brics role in the G20 is a fundamental position for South Africa's growth opportunity."

She said Brics countries shared the same vision of boosting economic growth and eradication of poverty and hunger.

"We need to become more than just an exporter of minerals but become resilient, which means becoming innovative for us to be competitive.

"We need infrastructure such as power, telecoms, roads, ports and rail which you need to connect people and move goods and services or you cannot grow the economy.

"As country and region, it (Brics) connects us to the most exciting and fastest growing part of the world. You are in the club, they gave you membership, go and exploit opportunities," she said.

On suggestions that former finance minister Trevor Manual be appointed MD of the IMF Ramos said: "I think the issue is the point of principle. If you are going to choose the MD of IMF you need to find the right candidate.

"You can't reserve those jobs for a particular region. Its about the best person to run these institutions which are of global importance."

She said South Africa's other competitive advantage was the country's mineral resources and the fact that it was in a continent with rich agricultural opportunities

"We need to become much more active as citizens of this country. We often think about the things we want other people to do, especially government.

"Our ability to be much more proactive and engage is an important success factor. We need to become more aware of what it means to be competitive.

She said South Africa's key impediments were: " It takes us time to get things done. We take a lot of time to get things right.

"I do think we are too self-critical, and not courageous enough to take opportunities."