India’s BRICS Contact Group On Economic And Trade Issues, Jaipur, August 2026: Strengthening Trade, Finance And Global Value Chains

Policy Update
Pragya Raghav

Abstract

India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship placed the Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) at the centre of the grouping’s economic agenda. The First Meeting of CGETI, held in New Delhi in February 2026 under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability” (BRICS India 2026), began a year-long trade and economic process that continued through two further CGETI meetings and the 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur (PIB, 2026).

This paper examines whether an expanded and geopolitically diverse BRICS can turn economic discussions into measures that deliver practical results, particularly in strengthening the WTO-based trading system, building resilient global value chains, improving trade finance for MSMEs, and expanding cooperation in digitally delivered services (PIB, 2026). It argues that CGETI’s 2026 work represents a meaningful move beyond broad declarations.

The Jaipur Consensus on an Invoice Discounting Mechanism, the Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026-2030, and progress on the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030 show an effort to build tools that can support actual economic cooperation. However, consensus-based decision-making and uneven trade relations among members remain significant constraints. The paper concludes that India’s chairship gave CGETI a stronger implementation focus, but its success will ultimately depend on whether these initiatives continue to function after 2026.

Keywords: BRICS, CGETI, Intra-BRICS Trade, Multilateral Trading System, MSMEs, Global Value Chains, India’s BRICS Chairship 2026

Introduction

The Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) is BRICS’ main working-level forum for trade and economic cooperation, with its recommendations feeding into discussions among BRICS Trade Ministers (Ministry of External Affairs, n.d.). Established in 2011, it has helped shape the grouping’s positions on the multilateral trading system, intellectual property, MSMEs, services and non-tariff measures (Ministry of External Affairs, n.d.).

Its role became particularly important under India’s fourth BRICS Chairship in 2026, themed “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.” These four themes were reflected in CGETI’s economic agenda: resilience through more diversified and secure global value chains, innovation through improved access to finance for MSMEs, cooperation through efforts to strengthen the WTO-based trading system, and sustainability through greater collaboration in digitally delivered services. With BRICS expanding to eleven members, India faced the challenge of keeping economic cooperation effective despite wider differences in interests and priorities, while delivering credible results ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi (BRICS India 2026).

The First CGETI Meeting, held in New Delhi in February 2026, therefore served as an early test of whether India could translate these themes into practical economic outcomes. This paper assesses the 2026 CGETI initiatives on four criteria: whether they address a clearly identified trade or financial constraint, whether they create workable institutional mechanisms, whether they can be adopted by banks and businesses across diverse BRICS markets, and whether they have a realistic pathway to implementation beyond India’s Chairship. More than setting priorities, the key question is therefore whether an expanded and increasingly diverse BRICS can turn its economic dialogue into mechanisms that deliver measurable and lasting results (BRICS India 2026).

Background

India assumed the BRICS Chairship on 1 January 2026, marking its fourth term as chair since 2012 (BRICS India 2026). Shortly after the first BRICS Sherpa Meeting in New Delhi on 9-10 February 2026, where India outlined its priorities across health, agriculture, trade and other areas (Doordarshan News, 2026), the Department of Commerce convened the First Meeting of CGETI in New Delhi. The meeting placed trade and economic cooperation within the wider Chairship agenda and began a process that continued through three CGETI rounds, culminating in the Third CGETI Meeting in New Delhi on 3- 4 August 2026 and the 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur on 7 August 2026 (PIB, 2026).

Holding three rounds marked a shift from declaratory diplomacy towards procedural institutionalisation, giving members repeated opportunities to negotiate technical proposals before they reached the ministerial level. This process enabled frameworks such as the Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026-2030 and MSME credit guidelines to be developed and negotiated before the Jaipur meeting (PIB, 2026). CGETI thus became more than a routine working group during India’s Chairship. It emerged as the main forum for turning economic priorities into negotiated outcomes, with the real test being whether these mechanisms can continue beyond 2026 and produce measurable cooperation.

Analysis

Geopolitical and Strategic Shifts

BRICS entered 2026 with eleven members whose different economic structures complicated consensus within CGETI. China and India are major manufacturing exporters; Russia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are major energy producers; and Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia combine agricultural, commodity, manufacturing and services interests. These differences shape members’ priorities on tariffs, subsidies, market access, supply chains and domestic policy space.

India placed CGETI’s agenda around a reformed, development-oriented and member-driven WTO. Its support for restoring binding two-tier dispute settlement and strengthening Special and Differential Treatment offered common ground (PIB, 2026). These issues directly affect intra-BRICS trade by shaping market access, subsidies and policy flexibility. CGETI therefore sought not to remove differences but to negotiate limited positions acceptable to all members. Its success depended on converting diverse national interests into workable common commitments.

Economic Implications and Opportunities

The significance of CGETI’s 2026 work lies in its attempt to move BRICS economic cooperation from broad commitments towards practical mechanisms. The Jaipur Consensus proposed studying a BRICS Invoice Discounting Mechanism, while the Guiding Principles for Credit Assessment Frameworks for Export-Oriented MSMEs address a key problem faced by smaller exporters: limited access to trade finance because conventional lending often depends on collateral rather than export orders and cash flows. Unlike existing national or international trade-finance arrangements, a BRICS mechanism could create a common framework for assessing cross-border MSME transactions among member countries, potentially making financing more accessible across different banking systems. However, its value will depend on whether commercial banks actually adopt and operationalise it. The mechanism could help address the global trade finance gap, estimated at USD 2.5 trillion (PIB, 2026).

The same implementation-oriented approach is visible in the Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026-2030. India’s pharmaceutical sector imported around 70% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from China in recent years, highlighting the risks of concentrated sourcing. The Action Plan proposes a BRICS Technical Council, a joint GVC study and possible investment platforms in pharmaceuticals and food security, creating scope to diversify sourcing and strengthen supply-chain resilience (PIB, 2026). However, establishing these mechanisms would require investment, coordination among national industries and agreement on which sectors and projects should receive priority.

The principles on digitally delivered services similarly create a basis for expanding intra-BRICS trade. Alongside these measures, progress on the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030 could bring trade, services, the digital economy and financial cooperation under a common framework. Most initiatives still require further development, making implementation beyond India’s Chairship crucial to determining whether CGETI’s 2026 agenda produces lasting economic cooperation (PIB, 2026).

Challenges and Structural Impediments

The main limitation facing CGETI is that consensus among eleven members does not automatically translate into implementation at the commercial level. The grouping brings together countries with different financial systems and trade structures, while Russia and Iran face extensive Western sanctions and financial restrictions that can complicate cross-border transactions with BRICS partners.

Beyond the legal restrictions imposed by sanctions, commercial banks also face wider compliance concerns, including enhanced due diligence, sanctions screening, correspondent-banking risks and uncertainty over whether particular transactions can be processed. This creates a significant execution challenge for initiatives such as trade finance and cross-border payments. Even where BRICS governments agree on common mechanisms, their adoption ultimately depends on commercial banks being willing and legally able to process transactions and accept counterparties from other member countries.

Intra-BRICS trade also remains uneven. India’s trade with China, for example, was heavily imbalanced, with Indian imports from China substantially exceeding its exports, while China’s overall trade links with BRICS members are considerably larger than those of most other members. Such asymmetries make the objective of “balanced and expanding trade” difficult to achieve in practice (PIB, 2026a). The status of the 2026 initiatives also varies: the Invoice Discounting Mechanism was proposed for further study, the MSME credit framework was issued as guiding principles, and the GVC Action Plan was adopted but its proposed investment platforms are not yet operational (PIB, 2026a).

The central execution gap is therefore between BRICS-level commitments and their adoption by banks, businesses and financial institutions. Closing this gap will determine whether CGETI’s 2026 achievements have lasting value beyond India’s Chairship.

India’s Role and Strategic Imperatives

India made CGETI the main working forum for advancing four priorities during its Chairship: strengthening the multilateral trading system, creating more resilient and diversified global value chains, improving MSME access to international markets and trade finance, and facilitating digitally delivered services across borders (PIB, 2026). India also connected these priorities to the concerns of its farmers and the wider need to protect food and livelihood security, making the preservation of Special and Differential Treatment an important position in WTO reform discussions (PIB, 2026).

This allowed India to pursue two objectives through the same platform. It could speak to wider Global South concerns about the trading system while also advancing its own Viksit Bharat@2047 economic priorities. The stronger significance of CGETI under India’s Chairship, therefore, was its attempt to connect BRICS’ broader economic agenda with specific mechanisms and action plans. The challenge now is to ensure that these proposals survive beyond 2026 and develop into functioning forms of cooperation.

Policy Recommendations

CGETI’s 2026 outcomes will matter only if they continue beyond India’s Chairship and produce measurable economic benefits. The immediate priority should therefore be to move the New Delhi and Jaipur commitments from proposals and frameworks to functioning mechanisms.

1. Operationalise the Invoice Discounting Mechanism: Move the Jaipur Consensus beyond the study stage by developing a pilot BRICS Invoice Discounting Mechanism with a clear timeline. The pilot could involve the New Development Bank (NDB), national export-import and development finance institutions, and selected commercial banks from participating BRICS members. These institutions could jointly develop eligibility, invoice-verification and risk-assessment standards, allowing export-oriented MSMEs to access finance based more on verified cash flows and export receivables than on conventional collateral requirements (PIB, 2026).

2. Put the GVC Action Plan into Practice: Establish the proposed BRICS Technical Council and develop the proposed BRICS Connect platform with defined responsibilities, participating institutions and reporting deadlines. Since these mechanisms still require development rather than being fully operational, India should first establish their institutional structure and clarify how governments, industry bodies and businesses will participate. This would give the Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026–2030 a practical framework for tracking supply-chain diversification, particularly in pharmaceuticals and food security (PIB, 2026).

3. Set a Clear Deadline for the Economic Partnership Strategy: India should push for a fixed timeline for completing and endorsing the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030. This would prevent the Strategy from remaining at the “progress towards finalisation” stage and give the grouping a clear long-term economic roadmap (PIB, 2026).

4. Build Digital Services Cooperation through Common Digital Infrastructure: The BRICS Principles on Digitally Delivered Services should be supported by cooperation on digital public infrastructure (DPI), including interoperable fast-payment systems and digital identity frameworks. Linking national payment networks could make cross-border transactions faster and cheaper, while compatible digital identity systems could simplify verification for businesses and service providers operating across BRICS markets. These efforts should be accompanied by basic cybersecurity and data protection safeguards to build trust in cross-border digital trade (PIB, 2026).

5. Measure Intra-BRICS Trade Annually: CGETI should introduce an annual assessment of intra-BRICS trade using a common set of indicators, including total trade volume and growth, trade balance between individual members, changes in the composition of goods traded, MSME participation in cross-border trade, and the value and growth of services trade. The assessment should also track progress in digitally delivered services and the use of BRICS trade-finance mechanisms where available. Publishing these indicators annually would help identify persistent trade imbalances, measure whether new initiatives are reaching smaller businesses, and turn the goal of “balanced and expanding trade” into an outcome that can be monitored rather than simply stated (PIB, 2026).

6. Continue the Multi-Round CGETI Process: The practice of holding CGETI meetings at different points during the year should continue beyond 2026. The New Delhi meetings in February and August allowed technical issues to be discussed over time rather than being left until a single pre-summit meeting (BRICS India 2026; PIB, 2026). Retaining this format would give members greater time to negotiate, resolve differences and prepare workable proposals.

Conclusion

The First Meeting of CGETI in New Delhi began a year of sustained economic negotiations that culminated in the 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur, where a Chair’s Statement was issued with four substantive annexes covering the multilateral trading system, MSME finance, global value chains and digital services (PIB, 2026a). Against the criteria used in this paper, India’s 2026 Chairship can be considered a meaningful step towards practical economic cooperation, but not yet a completed success. CGETI identified concrete trade and financial constraints, developed mechanisms to address them, and created a structured process for negotiating proposals among economically diverse members.

However, commercial adoption, uneven intra-BRICS trade and financial compliance barriers mean that political agreement has not yet translated into implementation at scale. The most important condition for these initiatives to survive beyond India’s Chairship is therefore institutional continuity, with BRICS members assigning clear responsibilities, timelines and monitoring mechanisms to ensure that negotiated frameworks are implemented by governments, financial institutions and businesses. India’s lasting achievement will depend not on the number of initiatives agreed in 2026, but on whether the CGETI process can continue turning them into functioning mechanisms after its Chairship ends.

References

BRICS India 2026. First meeting of BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI). Government of India. https://www.brics2026.gov.in/events/first-meeting-of-brics-contact-group-on-economic-and-trade-issues-cgeti/

BRICS India 2026. Home. Government of India. https://www.brics2026.gov.in

Doordarshan News. (2026, February 11). First meeting of BRICS Sherpas under India’s chairship held in New Delhi.Government of India. https://ddnews.gov.in/en/first-meeting-of-brics-sherpas-under-indias-chairship-held-in-new-delhi/

Ministry of External Affairs. (n.d.). BRICS India 2021: Trade. Government of India. https://brics2021.gov.in/trade

Press Information Bureau. (2026, August 7). India successfully concludes the 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur under its BRICS Chairship 2026. Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2296367&lang=1&reg=48

Press Information Bureau. (2026, August 6). India successfully concludes the Tenth BRICS Industry Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur under its BRICS chairship 2026. Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2295733&lang=1&reg=48

About the Contributor

Pragya Raghav is pursuing a B.A. (Hons.) in History at Mata Sundri College for Women, University of Delhi, with a minor in Political Science. She is passionate about public policy, international relations, governance, climate policy, and sustainable development. Through research and policy analysis, she aims to contribute to evidence-based policymaking and create meaningful social impact.

Acknowledgement

I would like to sincerely thank IMPRI (Impact and Policy Research Institute) for giving me the opportunity to work on this policy paper on “Strengthening Intra-BRICS Trade: India’s BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues, 2026.” This research helped me develop a better understanding of BRICS’ evolving economic agenda, India’s 2026 chairship, and the challenges and opportunities involved in strengthening trade and economic cooperation among its diverse members. I am grateful to Arjun Sir and the entire IMPRI team for their guidance, support and valuable feedback throughout the research process. I would also like to thank my fellow interns and peers for their thoughtful discussions, suggestions and encouragement, which made this research experience both meaningful and enriching.