NEW DELHI: India is preparing to host the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit at Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13, bringing the expanded group of emerging economies together at a moment of intense geopolitical and financial uncertainty.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the summit, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and leaders or senior representatives from other member states due in the capital. Xi’s trip, his first to India in seven years also raises expectations of a bilateral meeting that could push forward the cautious improvement in India-China relations.
- India must try to secure consensus on the Middle East crisis despite differences inside BRICS.
- Crude oil above $100 a barrel has made energy security, shipping routes and inflation immediate concerns.
- New Delhi is expected to promote national-currency trade and links between central-bank digital currencies.
- A Modi – Xi meeting could support the recent diplomatic thaw, although strategic mistrust remains.
- The expanded bloc must show that wider membership can produce practical cooperation rather than paralysis.
What is the motto of India’s BRICS presidency?
India’s official theme is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability” – a formulation built from the letters in BRICS. It places practical development cooperation at the centre of the presidency rather than defining the group only through rivalry with Western institutions.
The four words point towards a broad programme: stronger economies and supply chains, innovation-led development, deeper political and financial cooperation, and climate action that takes the development needs of poorer countries into account.
The key issues expected to dominate the summit
Iran war and the struggle for a joint declaration
The most difficult task will be reaching common language on the Iran war. Iran has been a BRICS member since 2024, but the conflict has sharpened divisions within the bloc, particularly between Tehran and the United Arab Emirates.
Because BRICS operates through consensus, conflicting positions on military action, sanctions and regional security could complicate the summit declaration. India will have to balance its ties with Iran, its close economic partnership with the UAE, its strategic relationship with the United States and its wider ambition to present BRICS as an effective voice for the Global South.
Oil above $100 and energy security
Energy security has moved from a long-term agenda item to an immediate economic concern. Attacks on tankers and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz have pushed crude prices above $100 a barrel. Reuters reported Brent crude at about $106.60 on September 10, while U.S. crude was above $101.
For India, a major oil importer, sustained high prices can raise the import bill, weaken the rupee, increase transport and manufacturing costs and complicate inflation control. The challenge is that BRICS includes both large energy exporters—such as Russia and Iran—and major importers, including India and China. Their interests overlap on stable supply but differ on price and sanctions.
The India impact
A prolonged oil shock could affect fuel costs, inflation, the current-account deficit and the rupee. India will therefore favour reliable shipping routes, diversified supply and mechanisms that reduce payment friction without locking the country into a rigid political or currency bloc.
Local currencies, CBDCs, and what India is not proposing
Financial cooperation will be one of the summit’s most closely watched themes. India is expected to advocate easier settlement of trade in members’ national currencies and better interoperability between central-bank digital currencies, or CBDCs.
The objective is to make cross-border transactions faster and cheaper and to reduce dependence on correspondent-banking chains. In practical terms, participating central banks could explore how their digital-currency systems communicate, while governments widen bilateral settlement arrangements where trade flows support them.
This is not the same as launching a single BRICS currency. India has framed the proposal as a payments and interoperability initiative, not a replacement for the U.S. dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency. A common currency would require far deeper coordination over monetary policy, reserves, exchange rates and fiscal rules than BRICS currently possesses.
| Proposal | What it could achieve | Main obstacle |
|---|---|---|
| National-currency trade | Lower dollar-conversion costs for selected bilateral transactions | Trade imbalances can leave one side holding currency it cannot easily reuse |
| CBDC interoperability | Faster central-bank-backed cross-border payments | Different technology, regulation, privacy and security standards |
| Currency-swap arrangements | Provide liquidity and support settlement during market stress | Credit risk, convertibility and political trust |
| Single BRICS currency | A theoretical shared unit for the bloc | No agreed monetary union; India is not presenting this as the current plan |
New Development Bank and local-currency finance
The New Development Bank provides BRICS with an existing institution through which financial ambitions can become development projects. Established in 2015, the Shanghai-based bank finances infrastructure and sustainable development across emerging economies.
Its 2022–2026 strategy targeted 30% of total financing commitments in member-country currencies. Local-currency loans can be valuable for projects that earn revenue domestically because they reduce the exchange-rate risk created when a borrower earns in rupees, rand or yuan but owes debt in dollars.
The NDB says it had approved about $42.9 billion across 139 projects by the end of 2025. Summit discussions can therefore focus on scaling a functioning institution, through local-currency bonds, co-financing, private investment and climate-resilient infrastructure, rather than inventing an entirely new financial architecture.
Other likely areas of discussion
- Reformed multilateralism: greater representation for developing countries in the UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank and other international bodies.
- Trade and protectionism: responses to tariff volatility, sanctions and non-tariff barriers affecting emerging markets.
- Supply-chain resilience: diversifying production and protecting access to food, fuel, fertilisers, critical minerals and technology.
- Digital public infrastructure: sharing scalable models for identity, payments and public-service delivery while addressing cybersecurity and privacy.
- Artificial intelligence: responsible governance, capacity building and access to technology for developing economies.
- Climate and development finance: funding resilient infrastructure and clean-energy transitions without restricting growth in lower-income states.
- Counter-terrorism: cooperation against extremist networks and terror financing, an issue India has consistently elevated in multilateral forums.
Modi–Xi meeting carries significance beyond BRICS
Xi Jinping’s visit will be watched as closely as the summit itself. It is his first trip to India since 2019 and his first since the 2020 Galwan Valley clash sent bilateral relations into a deep freeze.
A meeting with Modi could help consolidate the recent diplomatic thaw and produce movement on travel, visas, trade restrictions and limited economic cooperation. It is unlikely, however, to erase the trust deficit created by the unresolved border dispute, security concerns and India’s scrutiny of Chinese investment in sensitive sectors.
Modi is also expected to engage Putin on energy, defence and economic cooperation. India’s ability to host Xi, Putin, Pezeshkian and Gulf representatives at the same table demonstrates New Delhi’s unusual diplomatic reach across competing political camps.
Partners and outreach underline BRICS expansion
The attendance of partner countries and invited representatives gives India a wider diplomatic audience, but expansion also creates a harder governance problem. A larger forum carries more economic and political weight, yet its members bring different alliances, security concerns and positions on sanctions.
That tension between global reach and internal cohesion, will define the New Delhi summit. If India can secure a meaningful declaration on the Iran crisis, energy security and development finance while advancing practical payment cooperation, it will strengthen BRICS’ claim to be more than a diplomatic gathering.
If consensus breaks down, the summit may instead expose the limits of an expanded bloc whose members agree on the need for a more representative world order but differ sharply on how to respond to its biggest conflicts.
