[🇧🇩] BRICS---Can Developing Countries Including Bangladesh Benefit From It?

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/south-asia/313585/brics-nations-urge-smooth-global-trade-energy-security

BRICS nations urge smooth global trade, energy security
Agence France-Presse . New Delhi, India 13 September, 2026, 00:00

Left to Right, Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira, UAE’s Supreme Council for National Security secretary-general Ali Mohamed Hammad Al Shamsi, Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto, Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, China’s president Xi Jinping, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian and Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed pose for a group photo during the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. | AFP photo

Members of the 11-nation BRICS group including China, Russia, Iran and India called for calm in the Middle East, smooth global trade and energy security at a summit in New Delhi on Saturday, overcoming earlier divisions to issue a joint statement.

Chinese president Xi Jinping, who joined Russian, Iranian, Indian and other leaders in India’s capital, told the summit that the Middle East war ‘does not serve the common interests of the international community’.

Foreign ministers of the BRICS grouping had failed to agree on a joint statement when they met in New Delhi in May, with Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates divided over the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on February 28.

But leaders issued a statement on Saturday after intense diplomatic efforts by host India, as the bloc seeks to bolster its global influence and address conflict, trade turbulence and energy security.

‘We express deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in Middle East/West Asia,’ the joint statement said, adding the countries ‘call for exercising maximum restraint, as well as avoiding actions that could further aggravate the situation’.

BRICS was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers.

‘We have to transform this pyramid of privilege into a platform of partnership,’ Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other leaders as he opened the two-day summit.

Modi said BRICS nations ‘represent 50 percent of the world’s population, 40 percent of global GDP and more than 25 percent of global trade’.

But finding balance in the bloc is a tough diplomatic task.

India maintains cordial relations with both Iran and US ally Israel, but is also careful to strike a delicate balance in its ties with Washington.

Iran’s Pezeshkian attended the summit shortly after warning that the Middle East does not need the United States to be a ‘regional policeman’, with the two countries at war and tensions threatening the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Pezeshkian met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the summit sidelines.

India has navigated the energy crisis caused by the US-Iran war in part by turning to Russia, despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine and pressure from Washington and other Western capitals.

Modi embraced Putin before talks on Friday. The Russian president, who last visited India in December 2025, is one of New Delhi’s most important strategic partners.

‘Handling differences’ -

Xi’s participation is also being closely watched because it is his first visit to neighbouring India since 2019, and the biggest step yet in a cautious thaw between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Xi was given a red-carpet welcome, with an honour guard of soldiers and traditional dancers in colourful dresses.

‘Although our two countries are different in many respects, they are fully capable of complementing each other’s strengths, supporting one another, achieving mutual success and advancing together,’ Xi said as he met Modi, in a video released from New Delhi.

His visit comes six years after a deadly military clash along the disputed Tibetan border between China and India, with ties gradually improving through restored flights, visas and high-level contacts.

The underlying territorial dispute remains unresolved, and both sides retain heavy military deployments along their roughly 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) high-altitude border.

India’s foreign ministry said in a statement after the meeting that ‘the two leaders expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question’.

Modi ‘underlined the need for both sides to observe existing agreements and understandings on border related issues,’ the foreign ministry added.

Deep mistrust remains, with their contested Himalayan frontier, a widening trade deficit and strategic rivalry continuing to complicate ties.

‘Both sides should... work hand-in-hand to promote high-quality major financial cooperation, advocate an equal and sustainable global order, and foster an economic globalisation that is open and inclusive,’ Xi said.

Dozens of Tibetans protested in New Delhi on Friday—exiles, like their Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since fleeing a Chinese crackdown in 1959 -- waving placards against Xi’s visit.​

 

[Saif]

BRICS Delhi Declaration signals grudge over global trade rules

The most consequential message from the Delhi Declaration of the BRICS summit may not be found in any single paragraph. It lies in the sheer breadth of the document. Across 140 paragraphs, the grouping of Global South moves from war and terrorism to currencies, sanctions, tariffs, energy security,

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

BRICS Delhi Declaration signals grudge over global trade rules

The most consequential message from the Delhi Declaration of the BRICS summit may not be found in any single paragraph. It lies in the sheer breadth of the document. Across 140 paragraphs, the grouping of Global South moves from war and terrorism to currencies, sanctions, tariffs, energy security, artificial intelligence and the future of multilateral institutions. Taken together, the declaration amounts to something more than a diplomatic communiqué: it is a statement of dissatisfaction with the way the global economy is governed.

That dissatisfaction matters because BRICS is no longer a marginal club. Its members collectively account for roughly half of the world's population, about 40 per cent of global GDP and 26 per cent of global trade. What they say about the future of trade therefore cannot easily be dismissed as rhetoric from the periphery. The question is whether BRICS can turn its growing economic weight into a coherent alternative to the existing system.

The Delhi declaration suggests that it wants to try.

Perhaps the clearest challenge is the dominance of the US dollar. The declaration stops short of endorsing a single BRICS currency - a proposal that has often attracted headlines but remains politically and economically unrealistic in the near term. Instead, it calls for continued work on cross-border payment interoperability and trade settlements and investment using BRICS members' local currencies.

That distinction is important. De-dollarisation, if it happens, is more likely to emerge through thousands of commercial transactions than through the launch of a spectacular new currency. If companies in Brazil, India, China, Russia or other BRICS economies can increasingly settle trade directly in their own currencies, demand for dollars could gradually decline.

But the declaration itself acknowledges that there is no "one-size-fits-all approach". That phrase exposes the fundamental limitation of BRICS. Its members have different economic structures, monetary policies, strategic interests and relationships with the dollar. China and Russia may have stronger incentives to reduce dependence on the US financial system, while other members may see considerable advantages in continuing to use it.

The practical impact, therefore, is likely to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

The same tension appears in the declaration's treatment of sanctions and trade barriers. BRICS condemns unilateral sanctions and criticises carbon border adjustment mechanisms. Although no particular country is named, the target is clear enough: the growing use of economic power and regulatory standards as instruments of geopolitical policy.

This is becoming one of the central disputes in global trade. Tariffs are no longer simply about protecting domestic industries. Sanctions, export controls, investment restrictions, carbon standards and technology restrictions increasingly form part of a broader geopolitical contest.

For developing countries, the concern is that rules designed in the name of security, climate or strategic autonomy can become new barriers to market access.

The BRICS position is therefore likely to resonate beyond its own membership. Many developing economies have long argued that the international trading system is formally multilateral but substantively unequal. A carbon border levy imposed by a rich economy, for example, may be presented as an environmental measure while imposing substantial adjustment costs on exporters in poorer countries.

Yet BRICS will have to answer an uncomfortable question: can it criticise protectionism while ensuring that its own members keep their markets open?

The declaration's strongest institutional message is directed at the IMF and World Bank. BRICS again calls for reform of quota and voting arrangements so that emerging and developing economies receive greater representation. It also demands that the 16th General Review of Quotas enter into force without further delay and that work begin on the 17th review.

This is not merely about prestige. Voting power in global financial institutions influences whose economic interests shape crisis lending, development finance and the rules governing the international monetary system.

The WTO presents an even more immediate problem. BRICS strongly advocates the restoration of a fully functioning, two-tier binding dispute settlement system and the appointment of new members to the Appellate Body.

Here the declaration touches the heart of the crisis in global trade. A rules-based trading system cannot function properly if countries cannot rely on an effective mechanism to settle disputes. The paralysis of the WTO's appellate system has weakened confidence in multilateral trade governance and encouraged countries to pursue bilateral and regional arrangements.

For BRICS, restoring the WTO is therefore not necessarily an attempt to preserve the old order. It may be an attempt to make multilateralism more representative.

There is an irony here. The same grouping that is pushing de-dollarisation and criticising western economic dominance is also demanding stronger global institutions. This suggests that BRICS is not necessarily seeking to destroy the existing system. It wants to renegotiate the balance of power within it.

That may be the most realistic interpretation of the Delhi Declaration.

Its language on energy security reinforces this point. BRICS calls for stable energy markets, uninterrupted flows from diverse sources and greater resilience in critical infrastructure. It also stresses diversified and sustainable critical-mineral supply chains while defending the sovereign rights of resource-rich countries.

This could become increasingly important to global trade. The energy transition has transformed oil, gas and minerals into strategic commodities. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earths are becoming as politically sensitive as petroleum once was.

The declaration's treatment of artificial intelligence also points to another emerging battleground. AI is being brought into the BRICS agenda alongside trade, finance and cybersecurity. This is significant because future trade competitiveness will increasingly depend not only on access to physical markets but also on access to computing power, data, chips and AI technologies.

Who writes the rules governing AI could therefore become a major question of global economic power.

But the declaration also exposes the limits of BRICS consensus. Its careful language on the wars and conflicts dividing its members is a reminder that economic integration cannot easily overcome geopolitical rivalry. Ukraine is notably absent by name. The declaration discusses Sudan, Syria, Lebanon and wider West Asian tensions, while avoiding a direct position on the Russia-Ukraine war.

That ambiguity is politically useful, but economically revealing. A trading bloc cannot become a fully integrated economic power if its members remain divided over major strategic questions.

The future of BRICS will therefore depend less on the grand declarations it produces than on the institutions it builds between summits.

China's chairship in 2027 will provide an important test.

The Delhi Declaration has established the ambition. It portrays BRICS as a platform for a more multipolar economic order, one in which emerging economies have greater influence over money, trade, technology, energy and development finance.

But ambition is not integration.

The declaration's real impact on global trade may therefore be psychological before it becomes institutional. It signals to western powers that the rules of globalisation are no longer being debated only in Washington, Brussels or other traditional centres of economic power. Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow, Brasília and the wider BRICS world increasingly want a seat at the table - and, eventually, a hand in deciding what is on the menu.

The old assumption that global trade will continue to operate indefinitely according to rules designed largely by the dominant powers of the 20th century is becoming harder to sustain.

The Delhi Declaration is another sign of that change. It does not yet offer a new world economic order. What it does offer is something perhaps more consequential: a growing coalition of countries determined to make the existing one answer to them.​