BRICS Trade Ministers Meeting in India: Further Momentum for South-South Cooperation
The meeting of BRICS Trade Ministers concluded in India’s Jaipur with the main focus of discussions directed at WTO reform, supply chain resilience and support for small and medium-sized companies. With respect to the WTO, BRICS members emphasized the importance of the organization as the cornerstone of the international trading system as well as due consideration that is needed for special treatment of developing economies in international trade. As regards small and medium sized businesses, discussions focused on rendering financing more accessible to SMEs via the proposed BRICS invoice-discounting mechanism. BRICS representatives also discussed a work plan on BRICS’ shared understanding of global value chains, as well as the modalities of cooperation in the sphere of digitally delivered cross-border services.
Along with the discussions of mutual economic cooperation, participants further explored the recent trends in intra-BRICS trade dynamics, including with respect to the new members of the BRICS core. In particular, the United Arab Emirates increased its non-oil trade turnover with BRICS in 2025 by more than 28% from USD 243 bn to USD 312 bn. Overall, the share of BRICS nations in UAE’s total non-oil foreign trade reached 31% in 2025; BRICS countries were also the source of 34% of the UAE’s imports, the destination for 23% of its non-oil exports, and accounted for 28% of its re-exports during the same period.
Similar trends of rising trade with BRICS are also observed in Egypt – according to the country’s Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, in 2025 the trade turnover with BRICS increased by nearly 19% – from USD 45 bn in 2024 to USD 53.5 bn in 2025. This growth was primarily driven by the surge in Egypt’s exports to BRICS partners by more than 45% from USD 9.45 bn in 2024 to USD 13.8 billion in 2025.
For his part, Indonesia’s representative at the meeting, Trade Minister Budi Santoso, called for “combining robust multilateral cooperation with practical trade partnerships to achieve tangible results”. In particular, on the sidelines of the meeting in Jaipur, Budi Santoso held a meeting with his Brazilian counterpart to discuss the possibility of launching a preferential trade accord between Indonesia and Mercosur after earlier efforts to create a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) lost momentum. Also in Jaipur, India and South Africa discussed the signing of Terms of Reference (ToRs) for India-SACU PTA and early conclusion of negotiations on this trade accord. This emphasis on building trade accords targeting more open markets was further reflected in the priorities outlined at the meeting by the UAE – an economy that is currently one of the most active drivers of trade and environmental accords on the international arena. Since September 2021, the UAE “has concluded 38 agreements with economies across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, with 18 in force – including agreements with fellow BRICS members India and Indonesia”.
The positive trends in intra-BRICS trade lend further support to our views expressed since 2024 on the rising role of South-South trade in the global economy (“The Great Reconfiguration”). For the intensifying South-South trade cooperation to persist into the coming years BRICS+ economies will need to complement the measures discussed thus far at the ministerial level by more emphatic and large-scale undertakings that target closer trade policy coordination (including within the WTO) and the facilitation of concrete trade alliances that may involve not only individual economies but also regional blocs. The upcoming BRICS summit in September 2026 will reflect some of the advances made in the ministerial level, with further progress in the sphere of actual trade accords and region-to-region agreements across the Global South largely dependent on the evolution of the BRICS+ format.
Yaroslav Lissovolik is the Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.