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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will keep the focus on closer bilateral trade and investment between nations of the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) when he hosts the 13th BRICS Summit on September 9.
At the leaders’ meeting, Modi is expected to push for further reduction in barriers in trade and the development of multilateral trading rules and re-orient markets to increase trade turnover within BRICS, a senior official said.
India has recently made significant progress in convincing BRICS members to reaffirm the BRICS Strategy 2025, a seminal agreement on boosting trade and investments. The virtual BRICS Summit, being hosted by India, is expected to focus on it, they added.
Into the details
The Strategy includes a new framework for greater cooperation in services trade, promising easier movement of professionals across BRICS nations. This is expected to eventually lead to discussions on movement of natural persons, such as independent professionals (called Mode 4 services trade) and Mode 1, the cross- border supply of services, sources said.
While broad level consensus has been achieved so far, it is expected to slowly open doors to Indian professionals moving freely within BRICS economies as well as expand on services trade in the region.
Also included is a pledge to establish a common approach towards the multilateral trading system, keeping in mind the upcoming 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation to be held in Geneva in December 2021. This is expected to bring the BRICS countries on an unprecedented common platform on matters of global trade policy.
“While India and China have often advocated for developmental goals and policies, leading poor and developing nations at the global fora, significant differences exist among BRICS nations with regards to trade policy. A new move towards papering over these differences will prove to be the biggest achievement in India's trade diplomacy," a senior official said.
The government has said that despite numerous challenges and constraints, India was successful in building consensus for new areas of work and cooperation among BRICS countries. As a result, for the first time, a common understanding has arisen amongst BRICS countries on a wide range of areas. These include new declarations related to consumer protection, e-commerce, genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
Trade push
The Commerce Department is currently giving the final touches to its internal reports that pinpoint the areas where trade can be quickly ramped up. This comes after a push by the Prime Minister’s Office on the issue.
Barring trade with China, India's trade with the 15-year-old grouping has not expanded nearly as much as New Delhi had earlier hoped for. India hopes to fix this through a combination of targeted exports, based on demand in these markets, easing of rules of customs, trade and standards and a greater political will.
India’s total trade with the BRICS countries in 2020-21 stood at $110 billion in 2019-20, which rose to $113.3 billion in 2020-21, despite COVID-19. India's trade figures for the grouping is heavily dictated by its trade with China ($86.4 billion in FY21). The latest rise was also majorly due to a rise in trade with China.
