BRICS eye ‘mutually reinforcing policy levers’ to boost intra-bloc trade

With an eye on ensuring resilient global value chains, the BRICS countries will look at “mutually reinforcing policy levers” to boost trade within the grouping, the New Delhi Declaration, issued on Saturday, said. The statement comes a month after the meeting of BRICS trade ministers in August in Jaipur made note of the same, detailing that the levers would include backward and forward global value chain linkages, regional integration, economic diversification beyond primary commodities, investment in physical and digital infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, and upgrading workforce skills.

Boosting trade within the members of BRICS has been a focus for some time; according to think-tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), while the grouping in 2025 accounted for $5.7 trillion of the world’s exports of $26.3 trillion (21.6%), only 4.1% was intra-BRICS trade.

China dominates intra-BRICS trade, with its exports and imports to and from other members standing at $551 billion and $465 billion, respectively, in 2025. At $226 billion, India has the largest trade deficit among the members.

“Overall, intra-BRICS trade follows a China-centred hub-and-spoke pattern, rather than a balanced trading network,” Ajay Srivastava, Founder of GTRI, said, adding that there is “considerable scope for growth through better market access, lower trade barriers, improved logistics, local-currency settlement and more diversified supply chains”.

According to Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary General of Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), the awareness among businesses about opportunities in other BRICS countries is “abysmally low”, with most interactions so far being at the government-to-government level.

“To realise the potential of intra-BRICS trade, especially among original BRICS countries, respective governments have to liberally facilitate and support businesses to explore by reducing their risks,” Bhardwaj said. A March report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) noted that while intra-BRICS trade had increased rapidly since 2003, “policy-level cooperation has not been fully aligned with the dynamics” – the countries were relying on “soft initiatives”, with no comprehensive trade agreement covering the entire bloc.

As such, the UNCTAD report called for the adoption of a “Trade+ strategy to build political willingness, initiate a region-wide trade agreement, foster linkages between trade and other policy action areas and reform BRICS trade workstreams”.

The New Delhi Declaration comes a day after Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal called on the BRICS member and partner countries to link their payment systems and trade in each other’s currencies. Speaking at the opening session of BRICS Business Forum, Goyal said there is “immense potential to deepen cooperation” and that trade amongst partners should be deep and resilient with diversified supply chains.

The New Delhi Declaration reiterated the comments in the statement issued by BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors with regard to exploration of solutions to efficient cross-border payments, interoperability of payment and messaging channels, and promoting trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies.

The New Delhi Declaration also endorsed the consensus reached by the trade ministers in Jaipur to study the setting up of an ‘Invoice Discounting Mechanism’ for BRICS members, aimed squarely at providing funds to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and “strengthen their participation in international trade”.

“We acknowledge that access to affordable finance remains a primary bottleneck and structural constraint, limiting MSMEs' participation in trade and integration into Global Value Chains (GVCs),” the New Delhi Declaration said.

As per the background papers prepared for the BRICS Summit, the 11 BRICS members are home to a massive 266 million MSMEs, with India accounting for 94.91 million of them, or 36%. While the New Delhi Declaration cited access to affordable finance as a key bottleneck for MSMEs, the background paper by the New Delhi-based Institute for Studies in Industrial Development said that the constraints differ from country to country (access to finance in China, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia; taxes in Brazil, India, and Russia; electricity in South Africa and Egypt; political instability in Ethiopia).

As such, there is a need for "differentiated policy responses". Siddharth Upasani is a Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. He reports primarily on data and the economy, looking for trends and changes in the former which paint a picture of the latter.

Before The Indian Express, he worked at Moneycontrol and financial newswire Informist (previously called Cogencis). Outside of work, sports, fantasy football, and graphic novels keep him busy. ... Read More