India concluded the 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur on 7 August 2026, adopting a Joint Declaration and finalising the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030 ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi. The meeting, chaired by Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, was held under India’s BRICS Chairship theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. Days earlier, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) hosted the BRICS Heads of Competition Authorities in Udaipur, where members adopted a joint statement on promoting fair competition in renewable energy markets.
BRICS 2026: India’s Fourth Chairship
BRICS is an intergovernmental grouping of major emerging economies that takes its name from its five founding members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The term was coined in 2001 by economist Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs to describe the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and the grouping was formalised in 2006 when the foreign ministers of these four countries first met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The inaugural BRIC Summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in June 2009, and South Africa joined in 2011, turning BRIC into BRICS.
India assumed the BRICS Chairship for 2026 on 1 January 2026, succeeding Brazil, which had hosted the 17th Summit in Rio de Janeiro in July 2025. This is India’s fourth time as chair, after 2012, 2016 and 2021. The chairmanship is built around the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, which mirrors Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Humanity First” vision articulated at the 2025 Rio Summit.
The grouping has grown significantly in recent years. Five new members, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, joined in January 2024, and Indonesia followed in January 2025. Another ten countries were admitted as partner countries in 2025, including Belarus, Nigeria and Vietnam. BRICS today accounts for roughly 40 per cent of global GDP, about 49.5 per cent of the world’s population and 26 per cent of global trade. The 18th BRICS Summit, the high point of India’s chairship, is scheduled for 12-13 September 2026 in New Delhi.
The Jaipur Meeting: Participants and Agenda
The 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting was held at the Sawai Man Mahal in Jaipur on 7 August 2026, with Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, in the chair. The Indian delegation also included Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada and Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal. Trade ministers and senior officials from the other member countries took part, with delegations from Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the UAE.
The ministerial meeting was preceded by the Third Meeting of the BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI), the bloc’s officials-level trade body, held in New Delhi on 3 and 4 August 2026. A day before the trade ministers gathered, India also concluded the Tenth BRICS Industry Ministers’ Meeting in Jaipur on 6 August, which adopted a Joint Declaration on industrial cooperation under the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR).
Goyal set out four priorities for India’s chairship in the trade track: strengthening the multilateral trading system, building resilient and diversified global value chains, supporting the internationalisation of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and their access to trade finance, and enabling the seamless flow of digitally delivered services across borders. The ministers concluded with a summary by the Commerce Secretary on behalf of the Indian chairship, and the member countries thanked India for its hospitality and leadership of BRICS 2026.
What Was Agreed in Jaipur
The Joint Declaration and the WTO
The Joint Declaration reaffirmed the members’ commitment to a development-oriented, rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core. It called for restoring a fully functioning, binding and two-tier dispute settlement mechanism, and for preserving Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT), the flexibility that developing countries enjoy under WTO rules. The declaration also defended the policy space of developing economies on food security and public stockholding, an issue of direct importance to India, which procures and stocks foodgrains for its public distribution system. India described this outcome as a key achievement that safeguards the interests of its farmers.
The Jaipur Consensus on MSME Finance
The ministers issued the Jaipur Consensus, under which members agreed to study a BRICS Invoice Discounting Mechanism. Invoice discounting allows a business to raise working capital by selling its unpaid invoices to a lender at a discount, rather than waiting for payment from the buyer. Alongside this, they adopted the Guiding Principles for Credit Assessment Frameworks for Export-Oriented MSMEs, under which lenders would evaluate a firm on the strength of its cash flows and confirmed orders rather than on collateral and physical assets alone.
These instruments respond directly to the estimated global trade finance gap of about $2.5 trillion, a shortfall that disproportionately hurts smaller enterprises. They form part of the Workplan on the Internationalisation of MSMEs, adopted as one of the meeting’s annexes.
Global Value Chains and Digital Trade
The meeting adopted a work plan on the BRICS Shared Understanding on Global Value Chains, carrying a Global Value Chains (GVC) Action Plan for 2026 to 2030. It envisages a BRICS Technical Council, a platform called BRICS Connect, a joint study on global value chains, and the possibility of a strategic supply chain and investment promotion platform covering sectors such as pharmaceuticals and food security. Members also adopted the BRICS Principles to Facilitate Digitally Delivered Services Across Borders, which are meant to support safe and secure cross-border digital trade.
Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030
A landmark outcome was the finalisation of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030, the long-term blueprint that will guide the bloc’s economic cooperation for the rest of the decade. The strategy spans the multilateral trading system, trade in services, the digital economy, industry, innovation and technology, trade and investment, financial cooperation and sustainable development.
The strategy builds on the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership, which was first adopted at the Ufa Summit in Russia in 2015 and has since guided the group’s push for greater intra-BRICS trade and investment. The ministers agreed to submit the new strategy, together with the priorities set out in the Joint Declaration, for endorsement by BRICS leaders at the New Delhi Summit in September 2026. Once adopted, it is expected to provide the framework for deeper cooperation on everything from digital payments to clean energy supply chains among the expanded eleven-member bloc.
BRICS Competition Authorities Meet in Udaipur
About the CCI and the Meeting
In a parallel track of India’s chairship, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) hosted the BRICS Heads of Competition Authorities meeting in Udaipur, Rajasthan, on 8 August 2026. The CCI is India’s statutory competition regulator, established on 14 October 2003 under the Competition Act, 2002 and functioning under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, with its headquarters in New Delhi. It works to prevent anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position and to regulate combinations such as mergers and acquisitions. Its current chairperson is Ravneet Kaur.
The Udaipur meeting brought together the heads and senior representatives of competition authorities from BRICS member countries. It was the second major BRICS event in Udaipur after a gap of a decade, the city having earlier hosted the second meeting of BRICS disaster management ministers in 2016, which adopted the historic Udaipur Declaration on disaster risk reduction.
Renewable Energy Study and Joint Statement
The centrepiece of the meeting was a collaborative study titled “Emerging Competition Landscape in the Renewable Energy Sector in BRICS”, steered by the CCI as part of India’s chairship. The study examined how competition is evolving in renewable energy markets across BRICS jurisdictions and identified areas for future cooperation. Its key findings were presented at the meeting, and members adopted a joint statement on strengthening cooperation to promote fair competition, including in renewable energy markets.
Ravneet Kaur, in her inaugural address, underlined the shared responsibility of competition authorities to preserve competitive markets that foster efficiency, consumer welfare, innovation and fair opportunity for businesses to compete on merit. Given the increasingly cross-border nature of digital markets and emerging technologies, she said sustained cooperation and knowledge-sharing among BRICS authorities would be essential for informed and effective competition enforcement.
Planning the 2027 Conference in Brazil
The meeting also included an exchange on recent developments in competition law and policy across member jurisdictions, with presentations on significant enforcement initiatives and institutional developments. On the strategic front, the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) of Brazil briefed participants on its preparations for the tenth BRICS International Competition Conference (ICC), scheduled to be held in Brazil in 2027. The BRICS ICC is a biennial conference held by the group’s competition authorities on a rotation basis since the first edition was organised by Russia in 2009, with India having hosted it in New Delhi in 2023.
Why the Two Meetings Matter
The Jaipur and Udaipur meetings came at a moment when global trade is being reshaped by rising protectionism and economic fragmentation. India used the trade ministers’ platform to press for a reformed, member-driven and consensus-based multilateral trading system, arguing that reform of the WTO should strengthen, not dilute, the principle of special treatment for developing countries. The finalisation of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030 gives the bloc a concrete, decade-long roadmap just before the leaders’ summit in New Delhi, and the Jaipur Consensus signals a genuine attempt to address the working-capital crunch that keeps smaller firms out of export markets.
For India, the outcomes carry a domestic resonance. The emphasis on food security and public stockholding directly protects the interests of Indian farmers within the multilateral system. The push for cash-flow-based credit assessment and an invoice discounting mechanism could widen access to trade finance for the country’s MSMEs, which form the backbone of its export ecosystem. India framed the meeting as consistent with its long-term vision of a developed economy by 2047 and of shared prosperity among emerging economies.
The Udaipur meeting, for its part, extends BRICS cooperation into the fast-growing renewable energy sector. As member countries scale up solar, wind and storage capacities in the global energy transition, competition authorities are concerned that dominant firms could stifle emerging markets. A joint approach to keeping renewable energy markets fair and competitive helps protect both consumers and new entrants, and it connects the bloc’s economic agenda to its climate goals. The handover of the next BRICS International Competition Conference to Brazil in 2027 keeps this institutional cooperation on a regular, rotating rhythm.
Key Takeaways
- The 16th BRICS Trade Ministers’ Meeting was held in Jaipur on 7 August 2026 under India’s BRICS Chairship, chaired by Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
- The meeting finalised the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2030, which is to be endorsed by BRICS leaders at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on 12-13 September 2026.
- Ministers issued the Jaipur Consensus, agreeing to study a BRICS Invoice Discounting Mechanism, and adopted guiding principles that let lenders assess export-oriented MSMEs on cash flows rather than collateral, targeting the estimated $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap.
- The Joint Declaration reaffirmed a WTO-centred multilateral trading system, the restoration of its dispute settlement mechanism, and policy space for developing countries on food security and public stockholding.
- The Competition Commission of India (CCI), established on 14 October 2003 under the Competition Act, 2002, hosted the BRICS Heads of Competition Authorities meeting in Udaipur on 8 August 2026.
- The Udaipur meeting adopted a joint statement on fair competition in renewable energy markets and confirmed that Brazil will host the tenth BRICS International Competition Conference in 2027.
