BRICS

2020 BRICS Summit held virtually under chairmanship of Russia adopted the motto ‘BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Shared Security and Innovative Growth’.

Moscow Declaration reflects the five countries’ consolidated approach to the further development of the association. Two pillars of this year's summit are the economy and counterterrorism:

• Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2020-2025: three priority areas — trade, investment and finance; digital economy; and sustainable development.
• BRICS counter-terrorism strategy: contributing to global efforts to combat terrorism while also strengthening intra-BRICS ties. This includes improving intelligence sharing, cracking down on their sources of finance and preventing the spread of terrorism.

British economist Jim O’Neill had coined the acronym “BRIC” in 2001, identifying four high-growth economies that could dominate the world by 2050.The idea of forming a group came from Russia in 2007.  Russia hosted a BRIC foreign ministers’ meeting in 2008 and the first BRIC summit in 2009.Later in 2010, South Africa became the 5th member of the grouping making it BRICS. 

Achievements of BRICS

• New Development Bank (NDB): Fortaleza summit, Brazil, on the lines of Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
• reserved $10 billion to combat the pandemic, while its overall portfolio of investment projects now exceeds $20 billion.
• 62 large projects in the BRICS countries with increasing number of bank’s regional offices.
• preparing to accept new members – most likely Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines – thus expanding its global footprint
• Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA): provide mutual financial support, and as a contribution to the global financial safety net.
• Medical cooperation: Ufa Declaration in 7th summit in 2015 and work together to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre endorsed in the 10th summit in 2018.
• BRICS Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Framework Programme 2015 helped scientists and researchers to facilitate a common response to COVID-19.
• Expanding trade: Over the past five year intra-BRICS exports grew by 45% and the share of intra-BRICS exports in total BRICS international trade increased from 7.7% to 10%.
• BRICS Payments Task Force cooperation between central banks and other financial institutions on national payments system
• BRICS Rapid Information Security Channel to promote the exchange of information on cyber threats among their central banks.
• Multi-layered pragmatic cooperation through platforms for agriculture research and energy research cooperation, collaborative research on tuberculosis, on science and technology, culture etc
• Partnership on New Industrial Revolution focuses on cooperation in digitalisation, industrialisation, innovation, inclusiveness and investment.establishing industrial and science parks, innovation centres and business incubators.
• Diverse agendas like Global governance reforms (UN, UNSC, WTO, IMF etc.), climate change, terrorism etc. Its working group on countering terrorism has expanded its activities through five thematic subgroups that deal with terrorist financing, use of Internet for terrorist purposes, countering radicalisation, issue of foreign terrorist fighters, and capacity building
• Addressing bilateral issues: E.g. recently India China used the BRICS platform for continued talks on bringing India back into the RCEP fold and focused on resolving their trade issues through the recently launched mechanism led by Finance Ministers

Significance of BRICS for India

• Safe space to modulate rivalry: provides India and China the opportunity to decouple their strategic contest. Doklam standoff of 2017 and the recent Ladakh standoff, both China and India remained engaged through BRICS
• Providing a transcontinental reach: With the presence of Brazil and South Africa, it provides is a low-cost way for India to signal its aspirations as a global power.
• Boosting India’s demand for institutional reforms: BRICS’ repeated calls for reform of multilateral institutions, boosts India’s own assertions in this direction, acting as a multiplier to the country’s own demands for reform.
• Contribution in creating an inclusive international financial architecture: India was the main BRICS country behind the establishment of the NDB and has remained the LARGEST BENEFICIARY of NDB loans so far.
• Trade dependency: 34% of India's total imports are from the other four BRICS nations

Challenges faced by the grouping 

• Disparities among the members: bring together a mix of democratic and authoritarian regimes, with very different societal structures, resource bases, developmental trajectories, and historical traditions. The current pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing differences amongst the BRICS.
• Suspicions among members about Chinese regional and global ambition may impact group’s functioning in future. 
• Approach towards institutional reforms: BRICS is interested in selective reform of the system, as its members have developed vested interests in the existing system.
• Dependency on other global institutions:does not have the ‘strategic vision’ to deal with ‘global matters’ on its own.
• Changing world order: complicated by the pandemic, has raised concerns about future policy directions of BRICS member states and its eventual impact on the organisation as a whole. If the US-China rivalry intensifies, the already complex dynamics between India and China, India’s balancing act with the US, the growing Russia-China linkages, Russia-US tensions — raise the prospects of an ‘internal split.
• Lack of capital
• Low Intra-country trade: FDI flows to and from the BRICS are mainly to other countries and not to each other. China dominates whatever little flows happen within the BRICS nations.

Way forward

• work together to facilitate concrete trade and investment mechanisms 
• establish a permanent Secretariat for continuous discussions on matters of common interest & establish other coordinating agencies, such as a Committee of Foreign Ministers, an Assembly of Parliamentary Representatives, a Committee of Central Bank Heads etc.

BRICS has managed to begin a process of institutionalisation as well as increased intra-BRICS cooperation in areas like health, science and technology, finance, trade etc. BRICS had remained an important arena for ‘discussing the prospects of geopolitical evolution.’ The BRICS nations need to move towards a bottom-up approach to increasing private sector and citizen involvement. COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for the group to accelerate the establishment of the BRICS vaccine research and development centre as agreed in 2018.