India to host BRICS Trade Fair, Business Forum & Business Council meet

The Dollar Business Bureau

India envisages to utilise the upcoming BRICS trade fair, business forum & business council meeting to stimulate the BRICS strategy for economic partnership among the member countries.

This month, New Delhi will host a series of BRICS programmes - BRICS Trade Fair on October 12-14, BRICS Business Forum on October 13 and BRICS Business Council on October 14 - to deepen intra-BRICS economic engagement, trade and investment ties.

BRICS countries’ trade with the rest of the world has continued to increase over the years. Merchandise exports of the five-member bloc have increased from $3.2 trillion in 2012 to $3.47 trillion in 2014.

The Merchandise imports into the BRICS countries have also stretched from $2.95 trillion in 2012 to $3.03 trillion in 2014.

Intra-BRICS trade has also been on a constant rise. It grew from $281.4 billion in 2012 to $ 297 billion in 2014.

The upcoming BRICS programmes will provide them platforms to discuss their current level of trade, while focusing on enhancing their level of trade engagements in the future. Currently, intra trade amongst the member nations is less than 5% of their total global trade.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proposed the idea of BRICS Trade Fair and Exhibition during his address at the BRICS Business Council at Ufa, Russia. The first of this fair will see participation of 20 key sectors such as aerospace, agro-processing, auto and auto components, chemicals, green energy and renewables, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, railways, textiles and apparel, infrastructure, IT, engineering goods, tourism, gems and jewellery and skill development.

The Trade Fair is aimed at enhancing intra-BRICS economic engagement and fostering connects amongst members of BRICS business community.

The business leaders from BIMSTEC countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand) have also been invited for meetings and discussions with the BRICS business leaders and companies at the Trade Fair. This is a new dimension and complements the regional outreach efforts being made by our respective governments to fortify South-South cooperation.

BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has constantly widened its agenda to encompass topical global issues. One of the major agendas of the grouping has been to reform the global governance architecture, in which the emerging economies will have a larger role to play. Another agenda for the BRICS countries is to work with the international community to keep the multilateral trading system stable.

BRICS has also created the New Development Bank (NDB), which aims to serve as a source of finance for developing and emerging economies meet their developmental goals.