Overview
- China confirmed Xi Jinping’s attendance less than 48 hours before the summit, bringing India’s Narendra Modi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Massud Peseschkian together in New Delhi this weekend.
- On the eve of the talks, Modi held bilateral meetings with Putin and Peseschkian and told both leaders that dialogue and diplomacy are the path to resolving conflicts, the Indian foreign ministry said.
- Leaders will focus on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine plus trade, energy and steps toward settling transactions in national currencies, with negotiators discussing payment‑system interoperability rather than a single BRICS currency.
- Deep political splits persist inside the eleven‑member group — a failed joint declaration at the May foreign ministers’ meeting shows that disagreements between members, including Iran and Gulf states and India and China, could again block a unified final statement.
- Statistically large but institutionally thin, BRICS now claims roughly half the world’s population and a rising share of GDP by PPP, yet intra‑BRICS trade remains small and the New Development Bank is still modest compared with the World Bank and IMF, so economic initiatives face limits unless financing and market links deepen.