India leverages its presidency to introduce a comprehensive plan for BRICS, focusing on strengthening economic integration, sustainable innovation, and social resilience across member states, reshaping the bloc into a proactive development platform.
India used its BRICS presidency to put forward a far more detailed economic agenda than the bloc has often produced, setting out a package aimed at connecting small firms, researchers, health systems and farmers across member states. The plan, presented around the group’s New Delhi summit, is built on resilience, innovation, co-operation and sustainability, and it moves BRICS away from broad political signalling towards a set of practical links in trade, technology and development.
At the centre of the proposal is the idea that BRICS should deepen economic integration from the ground up. The roadmap spans agriculture, start-ups, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, public health, finance, customs, space, energy and climate-resilient cities. In practice, that means shared digital tools for farming, incubator links for entrepreneurs, easier access to cross-border financing for smaller businesses and common frameworks for trade logistics and customs enforcement.
The emphasis on commerce is backed by data showing how fast BRICS trade has grown, even if the bloc still captures only a limited share of world trade. UNCTAD says intra-BRICS merchandise trade has risen more than 13-fold since 2003, reaching $1.17 trillion in 2024. The report also notes that this trade still makes up only about 20% of South-South trade, suggesting there is room for deeper value-chain integration and more co-ordinated policy. An analysis highlighted by the Hinrich Foundation reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that stronger institutional capacity and better policy co-ordination will be needed if the bloc is to move beyond incremental gains.
India’s blueprint reflects that argument by trying to build the missing infrastructure around trade and investment. It calls for a BRICS startup innovation fund, an incubator network, a portal for smaller businesses, a local-currency settlement mechanism, a tax co-operation lab and an action plan for authorised economic operators to speed up customs clearance. The roadmap also extends into industrial and digital policy, including shared repositories for digital public infrastructure and scientific research, as well as a co-operation platform for workers displaced by automation and artificial intelligence.
There is also a strong social and environmental layer. The agenda includes joint work on agriculture, regenerative farming and seed rights, along with networks for tuberculosis research, mental health and traditional medicine. It adds plans for early warning systems against pandemics, smart-grid technology to support renewable power, satellite co-operation, sustainable aviation fuels, urban mobility and climate-resilient infrastructure. Together, these measures suggest India is trying to redefine BRICS not just as a diplomatic grouping, but as a development platform that can translate size into practical economic advantage.
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