India’s trade with BRICS has expanded dramatically, but the numbers reveal an uncomfortable imbalance beneath the rhetoric about a multipolar world and alternative financial architecture.
Between FY2021 and FY2026, India’s total merchandise trade with the 11-member grouping more than doubled, from $203.1 billion to $417.5 billion. Yet the expansion was overwhelmingly driven by imports. India’s purchases from BRICS rose 131.8 percent to $321.8 billion, while exports increased only 48.8 percent to $95.7 billion.
The consequence was a widening trade gap that reached $226.1 billion in FY2026, compared with $74.5 billion in FY2021.
More revealing than the size of the gap is the direction of India’s economic relationship with BRICS. The grouping’s share of India’s merchandise imports rose from 35.2 percent in FY2021 to 41.5 percent in FY2026, while its share of India’s exports edged down from 22 percent to 21.7 percent.
India is becoming more deeply connected to BRICS, but primarily as a buyer.
That is the central finding of an analysis prepared by Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), and it deserves more attention as BRICS leaders debate local-currency trade, alternative payment systems and the broader, politically charged question of de-dollarisation.
For all the speculation about the dollar’s future, there is a simpler economic truth that should guide India’s approach: changing the currency in which trade is settled does not change the underlying economics of that trade.
De-dollarisation has become one of the most politically loaded words associated with BRICS. It has acquired added urgency amid sanctions, geopolitical tensions and concerns about the vulnerability of trade conducted through financial systems dominated by Western institutions.
But much of the rhetoric exaggerates what is actually taking place.
There is no realistic prospect, at least in the foreseeable future, of a common BRICS currency replacing the U.S. dollar. The grouping has no common central bank, monetary policy or unified financial system. Its members differ sharply in the convertibility and liquidity of their currencies and, more fundamentally, in their economic and geopolitical interests.
India, for its part, has little reason to surrender monetary sovereignty to an arrangement in which China’s economic weight would inevitably be decisive.
What is more likely is a gradual diversification of payment mechanisms: greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade, currency swaps and alternative payment channels.
That is a much less dramatic proposition, but a more plausible one. De-dollarisation, in this sense, is not necessarily an attempt to overthrow the dollar; it is an effort to ensure that countries have alternatives when geopolitical tensions, sanctions or financial disruptions make the existing system difficult or costly to use.
Yet even this more modest objective faces a basic constraint.
Currencies facilitate trade. They do not create it. India’s trade with Russia demonstrates the difficulty.
Between FY2021 and FY2026, India’s imports from Russia rose from $5.5 billion to $55.4 billion, an increase of more than tenfold, largely because of energy purchases. Exports increased far more modestly, reaching $4.5 billion.
Such a relationship presents a practical challenge for local-currency settlement.
If Indian companies pay Russian exporters in rupees, Russia must have productive ways of using the rupees it accumulates. It can purchase Indian goods, invest in Indian assets or access financial instruments. But unless there is sufficient demand for Indian products and sufficiently deep markets for the currency, the mechanism can become cumbersome.
This is where the dollar retains a powerful advantage.
Its role in global commerce rests on much more than trade invoicing. The dollar is widely accepted across countries, supported by deep and liquid financial markets and backed by a vast supply of investable assets. A dollar received in one transaction can be deployed elsewhere in the global economy.
Most national currencies do not offer that degree of flexibility.
This does not mean local-currency settlement is impractical. It means it works best where the underlying economic relationship can sustain it. The wider and more balanced the trade relationship, the easier it is for currencies to circulate.
That is precisely why the structure of intra-BRICS trade matters.
The GTRI report shows that BRICS is not a network of equally integrated emerging economies. Its commercial architecture is heavily centred on China.
China exported $550.8 billion to other BRICS members and imported $464.9 billion from them, placing it at the heart of the grouping’s trade network.
India’s figures underline the same reality.
Imports from China rose from $65.2 billion in FY2021 to $131.6 billion in FY2026, accounting for about 41 percent of India’s total BRICS imports. Over the same period, India’s exports to China declined by 8.1 percent to $19.5 billion.
This is more than a bilateral imbalance. It reflects differences in industrial capacity, manufacturing ecosystems, technology and supply-chain integration.
The concern for India is that BRICS may become politically more multipolar while remaining commercially concentrated.
That would be an awkward outcome for a grouping whose larger political purpose is to create a more dispersed international order.
India’s imports are also concentrated in other major BRICS partners. The UAE supplied $63.9 billion in goods in FY2026, while Russia supplied $55.4 billion. Together, China, the UAE and Russia accounted for almost 84 percent of India’s BRICS imports.
This should force a distinction that is often lost in geopolitical discussions.
Diversifying away from one set of economic relationships does not necessarily produce genuine diversification. It may simply shift dependence elsewhere.
BRICS is unquestionably a major force in the world economy.
In 2025, its members accounted for $5.67 trillion, or 21.6 percent, of global merchandise exports, and $4.58 trillion, or 17.3 percent, of global imports.
Yet the grouping’s internal trade remains limited relative to its collective weight.
According to the GTRI report, BRICS countries export around $1.1 trillion worth of goods to one another and import about $1.4 trillion from fellow members. Intra-BRICS exports represent only 4.1 percent of world exports, while intra-BRICS imports account for 5.4 percent of global imports.
The contradiction is striking. BRICS consists of some of the world’s largest trading economies, but it is not yet a deeply integrated trading bloc. It has no common market, customs union or comprehensive trade arrangement designed to systematically dismantle barriers among members. Tariff and non-tariff restrictions remain. Logistics links are uneven. Economic structures differ widely.
Political expansion has moved faster than economic integration.
This is why the debate over alternative payment systems should be approached cautiously. A payment mechanism can reduce transaction costs and provide an alternative channel. It cannot create supply chains, remove market barriers or make goods competitive.
Nor can a currency swap substitute for market access.
The currency debate has become more politically charged because of repeated warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump against attempts to challenge the dollar’s international role. Trump’s threats of steep tariffs against countries seeking to undermine dollar primacy have turned what might otherwise have remained a technical discussion about payment systems into a geopolitical confrontation.
But the interests of BRICS members are not identical.
Russia has been pushed towards alternative channels by sanctions and restrictions on access to Western financial markets. China has a long-term interest in expanding the international role of the yuan. Other members seek greater flexibility and protection against financial disruptions.
New Delhi wants strategic autonomy, but it also requires access to Western markets, technology and capital. It has no compelling economic interest in a confrontation over the dollar. Its objective should be diversification, not monetary warfare.
That distinction is crucial.
India can support a more resilient international payments architecture without subscribing to the notion that replacing the dollar is, in itself, a measure of economic success.
For India, the GTRI report points to a more immediate agenda: expanding exports within BRICS.
The UAE was India’s largest export destination in the grouping in FY2026, importing $37.4 billion in goods. China followed at $19.5 billion and Saudi Arabia at $10.3 billion. Brazil and South Africa each accounted for around $7 billion.
But India’s exports declined over the FY2021-FY2026 period to Indonesia, Iran and Ethiopia.
The opportunity is substantial, but so is the policy challenge.
India needs greater market access in China, Russia and Indonesia. It must address non-tariff barriers, improve logistics and strengthen its position in higher-value manufacturing.
More importantly, New Delhi should insist that deeper financial cooperation within BRICS be matched by a serious effort to address commercial asymmetries.
There is little strategic value in building increasingly sophisticated payment arrangements if they merely make it easier to finance an expanding import bill.
Financial autonomy without commercial competitiveness is an illusion.
If BRICS wants national currencies to play a larger role, it must create the economic conditions in which those currencies can circulate. If it wants alternative financial infrastructure, it must deepen the trade relationships that justify such infrastructure.
And if it wants to become a credible economic bloc rather than simply a political grouping of large emerging economies, it must confront the barriers that keep intra-BRICS trade relatively shallow.
The arithmetic India should not ignore: the international monetary system is unlikely to change overnight.
The dollar may gradually lose ground in selected bilateral transactions. National currencies may gain a larger role in regional trade. Alternative payment systems may develop alongside existing institutions.
The outcome is more likely to be a diversified and fragmented financial system than a dramatic replacement of the dollar.
But for India, the immediate challenge is not monetary. It is commercial.
Between FY2021 and FY2026, BRICS became a much larger source of India’s imports without becoming a correspondingly larger destination for Indian exports. That widening asymmetry should define India’s negotiating position.
New Delhi should support local-currency settlement where it is commercially viable. It should encourage alternatives that reduce unnecessary dependence on any single payment system. It should also continue pressing for a more representative international financial architecture.
But the currency in which India pays for an import does not determine whether the transaction strengthens its economy.
A rupee-denominated import is still an import. A yuan-based transaction does not automatically produce strategic autonomy. And an alternative payment network cannot compensate for weak export penetration.
The real test for India is therefore straightforward. Can deeper BRICS integration help India sell more to BRICS, rather than merely buy more from it?
Until that question is answered convincingly, the de-dollarisation debate will remain strategically interesting but economically incomplete.
India does not need a different currency in which to manage an expanding trade imbalance. It needs a stronger export presence capable of reshaping the trade relationship itself. No payment system can substitute for that. (IPA Service)
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