Impact of BRICS on the Indian Business Industry with special focus on Media Industry
2 min readBRICS Summit 2026 Introduction
The 18th BRICS Summit was held at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 12–13 September 2026, under India’s chairship — its fourth time hosting (after 2012, 2016, 2021). Eleven full members attended (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, (UAE), representing about 49.5% of the world’s population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of global trade. Xi Jinping attended in person for the first time in seven years, and Modi also held separate bilaterals with Putin, Iran’s Pezeshkian, and UN Secretary-General Guterres on the eve of the summit. The summit closed with the **New Delhi Declaration**
Key Takeaways
– A customs cooperation agreement approved in principle, a standardisation memorandum among national standards bodies, a startup innovation fund, an incubator network, and an MSME cooperation portal.
– Push for IMF/World Bank quota reform and expansion of the New Development Bank (NDB).
– A joint statement on AI governance, plus a proposed BRICS Startup Innovation Fund and an AI “Risk Lab” pitched for GIFT City.
– Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal pushed for cross-border UPI interoperability, noting UPI has crossed more than 250 billion annual transactions and already has international acceptance, urging member and partner countries to link payment systems.
– Cooperation frameworks on critical minerals, customs facilitation, SEZs, and energy/critical supply chains — described as building
infrastructure and policy frameworks rather than a single comprehensive trade deal.
– No BRICS common currency and no single free-trade agreement emerged — outcomes are incremental, not transformational, in the near term.
This is the essential context for judging “industry impact”: BRICS 2026 was a framework-and-signalling summit, not a deal-signing bonanza like a state visit. Most of the concrete near-term economic upside is event-driven (hospitality, logistics, media coverage) rather than contract-driven.
