R. Suryamurthy
As BRICS leaders prepare to debate ways to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar and expand trade in local currencies, new trade data point to a fundamental weakness in the bloc’s economic architecture: BRICS may account for more than one-fifth of global merchandise trade, but commerce among its own members remains limited, uneven and heavily dominated by China.
For India, the imbalance is particularly stark.
The 11-member grouping supplied 41.5 percent of India’s merchandise imports in fiscal year 2026 but absorbed only 21.7 percent of its exports, according to an analysis by the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). India’s trade deficit with BRICS more than tripled in five years to $226.1 billion.
The numbers sharpen an uncomfortable question hanging over discussions at the BRICS summit: can the grouping meaningfully promote de-dollarisation and local-currency trade when its internal trade remains shallow and its commercial relationships are marked by large structural imbalances?
India’s total merchandise trade with BRICS more than doubled to $417.5 billion in FY2026 from $203.1 billion in FY2021. But the expansion has been driven overwhelmingly by imports.
Exports to BRICS rose 48.8 percent to $95.7 billion over the period, while imports surged 131.8 percent to $321.8 billion. The result was a widening deficit from $74.5 billion to $226.1 billion.
The trend means that BRICS is becoming increasingly important to India as a source of energy, industrial inputs, machinery and commodities, without emerging as an equally important market for Indian goods.
That asymmetry could complicate the political appeal of deeper trade integration and alternative payment arrangements.
De-Dollarisation Needs Trade Before It Needs a Currency
BRICS discussions on reducing reliance on the dollar have gained momentum amid geopolitical tensions, Western sanctions and concerns among emerging economies about the vulnerability of international payments dominated by Western financial institutions.
The debate, however, has increasingly moved away from the idea of an immediate common BRICS currency toward more practical measures: expanding settlements in national currencies, strengthening payment systems and reducing dependence on the dollar in bilateral trade.
Yet payment mechanisms cannot by themselves create trade.
GTRI’s data suggest that the more immediate challenge for BRICS is to build a deeper commercial foundation. In 2025, the bloc accounted for $5.67 trillion, or 21.6 percent, of world merchandise exports, and $4.58 trillion, or 17.3 percent, of global imports.
But trade within BRICS remains relatively small compared with the grouping’s collective weight in the global economy.
BRICS countries export about $1.1 trillion worth of goods to one another, equivalent to 18.8 percent of their combined exports. They import about $1.4 trillion from fellow members, representing 29.5 percent of their total imports.
Measured against world trade, however, intra-BRICS exports account for only 4.1 percent of global exports and intra-BRICS imports for 5.4 percent of global imports.
In other words, BRICS is a powerful collection of trading nations, but not yet a deeply integrated trading bloc.
That distinction could prove crucial as leaders discuss alternatives to dollar-based trade.
“De-dollarisation” can work most easily where countries already have large and relatively balanced trade flows, allowing importers and exporters to generate natural demand for each other’s currencies. Where trade is heavily one-directional, settlement in local currencies raises more difficult questions: what does the surplus country do with the accumulating currency balances, and where can those balances be invested or spent?
For India, this is not an abstract concern.
China-Centred Trade Network
The GTRI analysis shows that BRICS trade follows what it describes as a China-centred “hub-and-spoke” pattern rather than a balanced network of commercial relationships.
China exported $550.8 billion to other BRICS members and imported $464.9 billion from them, underlining its central position in the grouping’s economic network.
India, by contrast, recorded the largest trade deficit within BRICS.
China remained India’s biggest supplier in the grouping in FY2026, with imports doubling to $131.6 billion from $65.2 billion in FY2021. China alone accounted for about 41 percent of India’s BRICS imports.
The United Arab Emirates supplied $63.9 billion worth of goods, while imports from Russia jumped more than tenfold to $55.4 billion, largely reflecting India’s sharply higher purchases of energy.
Together, China, the UAE and Russia accounted for almost 84 percent of India’s BRICS imports.
India’s export picture is considerably narrower.
The UAE was India’s largest export destination within BRICS, receiving $37.4 billion worth of goods in FY2026, up 124 percent from FY2021. China was second at $19.5 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia at $10.3 billion.
Brazil and South Africa each absorbed about $7 billion, while exports to Russia and Indonesia stood at roughly $4.5 billion each.
More troublingly for New Delhi, India’s exports declined over the five-year period to Indonesia, Iran and Ethiopia. Exports to China also fell 8.1 percent even as imports from China rose 101.8 percent.
This widening gap illustrates the central dilemma facing India as BRICS expands its economic agenda: greater integration without stronger Indian export competitiveness could deepen rather than correct existing trade imbalances.
Russia Shows the Currency Challenge
India’s trade with Russia offers perhaps the clearest illustration of the opportunities and limitations of the de-dollarisation debate.
Imports from Russia rose from $5.5 billion in FY2021 to $55.4 billion in FY2026, an increase of more than 900 percent, driven primarily by energy purchases. Indian exports to Russia, meanwhile, increased to only $4.5 billion.
The enormous imbalance has created practical difficulties in establishing sustainable bilateral payment arrangements. A country exporting far more than it imports can accumulate large holdings of its partner’s currency unless mechanisms exist to recycle those balances through investment, financial markets or purchases of other goods and services.
The problem demonstrates why moving away from the dollar is more complicated than simply instructing companies to invoice transactions in rupees, yuan, rubles or other currencies.
A widely accepted international currency performs several functions: it provides liquidity, a store of value, deep financial markets and a mechanism for settling transactions among countries that may not trade directly with one another.
Local-currency settlement can reduce dollar dependence. But without sufficiently balanced trade and liquid financial markets, it may simply shift rather than eliminate settlement problems.
India’s Growing Dependence
The GTRI data show how rapidly India’s commercial dependence on BRICS suppliers has increased.
Between FY2021 and FY2026, India’s total global imports increased 96.7 percent to $775.7 billion. Imports from BRICS, however, rose much faster, by 131.8 percent.
As a result, the BRICS share of India’s imports climbed to 41.5 percent from 35.2 percent.
The export story moved in the opposite direction. India’s global exports rose 51.3 percent to $441.5 billion, while exports to BRICS increased by 48.8 percent. Consequently, BRICS’ share of India’s exports slipped marginally to 21.7 percent from 22 percent.
The numbers suggest that India is becoming more economically connected to BRICS, but on increasingly unequal terms.
That matters as the grouping discusses expanding trade, developing alternative payment systems and reducing dependence on Western-dominated financial infrastructure.
For New Delhi, deeper BRICS cooperation cannot be viewed merely through the prism of geopolitics or currency sovereignty. It must also be judged by whether it expands India’s export opportunities.
The Summit’s Hard Economic Question
The broader BRICS challenge is that political convergence does not automatically produce economic integration.
The expanded grouping brings together commodity exporters and importers, manufacturing powers, energy producers and large consumer markets. Its members differ sharply in economic structures, currencies, capital controls and geopolitical interests.
Unlike the European Union, BRICS has no common market, customs union or binding trade framework. Tariff and non-tariff barriers remain substantial, logistics links are uneven and businesses often have stronger commercial relationships outside the grouping than within it.
That explains the apparent paradox: BRICS controls more than one-fifth of world exports but generates only a small share of global trade among its own members.
The scope for expansion is therefore substantial. Better logistics, lower trade barriers, improved market access, diversified supply chains and local-currency settlement mechanisms could increase intra-BRICS commerce.
But the sequence may matter.
A stronger case for de-dollarisation will emerge from deeper and more diversified trade, rather than from currency arrangements alone.
For India, that means pressing for greater access to markets in China, Russia and Indonesia, addressing non-tariff barriers and expanding exports of higher-value manufactured goods and services.
It also means reducing excessive dependence on a handful of suppliers.
The BRICS summit may once again produce strong rhetoric about creating a more multipolar financial order. But the GTRI numbers offer a reminder that the real test lies in the underlying flow of goods.
India already buys heavily from BRICS. The harder task is to persuade BRICS to buy more from India.
Until that imbalance narrows, New Delhi’s embrace of deeper intra-BRICS trade — and any broader push toward local-currency settlement — will remain constrained by a simple economic reality: India cannot treat de-dollarisation as a strategic victory if greater trade integration simultaneously produces ever-larger deficits.