It is ironic that trade and investment flows within BRICS countries continue to disappoint, even though economics was the primary reason for the formation of the grouping.
Nine years after BRICS came into existence, none of its member countries figure high on the list of export destinations of other BRICS countries. India’s trade data exemplifies this poor record: provisional data for 2014-15 (April-March) shows India’s merchandise exports to other BRICS countries totalled only $25.172 billion, a paltry 8.13% of the total export receipts of $309.566 billion.[i] Among all the export destinations for India, China was at fourth position (with exports of $11.956 billion), Brazil at 13th ($5.964 billion), South Africa at 18th ($5.3 billion), and Russia at 38th ($2.1 billion) position.[ii] The situation is similar for all the other BRICS countries.
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