BRICS Is Rising, But How Powerful Is It? The Numbers Tell The Story

The broadly elliptical monument of Delhi, Bharat Mandapam, hosted the BRICS countries for two days last week, showcasing a blend of contemporary architecture, Indian heritage, and cuisines. About 28 leaders from 11 BRICS countries gathered to discuss bilateral trade, measures to eliminate trade barriers, and ways to strengthen economic relations. The most applauded point is that the BRICS bloc accounts for 40% of global GDP and 50% of the world population. However, if you exclude China, the numbers tell a different story.

BRICS Without China:

Surjit Bhalla, former executive director at the IMF for India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. Economist reveals BRICS went from 21.9% of world income in 2011 to 28.9% in 2025. That number is true, and it is the number every BRICS communique is built on.

Remove China from the list, and the growth is far more astounding. It's more downhill than uphill!

The other ten countries in the BRICS list went from 11.9% of world income in 2011 to 11.5% in 2025, a decline of 0.4%. Meanwhile, China alone went from 10% to 17.4% in these years, eventually accounting for 72% of the entire increase in BRICS income over the past 12 years.

Bhalla emphasizes that the BRICS bloc has risen. Remove one country, and it has not.

What Did Not Move At All For BRICS?

The population! BRICS, which accounted for 50.9% of the world's population in 2011, has broadly been the same, at 50.5% in 2025.

"Half the world's people, less than three-tenths of its income, and no convergence outside one country. Notice too that the peak was 2023, at 29.8%, and the share has fallen in each of the two years since," Bhalla said.

Inside the club, China, which held 45.6% of BRICS income in 2011, goes on to dominate the bloc with now 60.2% of income. Meanwhile, among the five long-standing members, the percentage of income surged from 54.1% in 2011 to 68.9%.

In the past 15 years, China's share of the BRICS population, on the contrary, has declined to 35.7% currently from 38.4%.

What Does BRICS Trade Growth Tell Us?

Excluding China, the trade growth of the 10 BRICS has fallen in the past 12 years. Excluding China and four oil-producing countries, the growth is flat.

Data gathered by Bhalla shows the BRICS share of world goods exports rose from 23% in 2011 to 25% in 2023. Take China out, and it fell from 12.4% to 10.1. Of the increase in BRICS goods exports over those twelve years, China accounts for 94%.

Meanwhile, in the BRICS club, four crude-producing countries are Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The oil exporters and their dollar export share largely reflect the oil price, which has also fallen. They held 7.3% of the world's exports in 2011, which dropped to 5% in 2015 and has been lackluster till 2023.

"Strip out both China and the four oil exporters, and the remaining six—Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia—were 5.1% of world goods exports in 2011 and 5.1% in 2023. Twelve years, no change at all. That is the cleanest number in this exercise, and it is the most damning: it is not an oil-price artefact, and it is not a China story. It is simply nothing happening," Bhalla said.

Who Is Poorer, Who Is Richer?

According to the data, Ethiopia and China nearly tripled their dollar incomes. India doubled. Indonesia is respectable. But countries like Brazil, South Africa, and Iran are poorer in dollar terms in 2025 than they were in 2011. Brazil's rank in income per citizen is 112, followed by South Africa at 118 and Iran at 123. All three countries are in negative income per head, at -0.4% over the 2011-25 period, while South Africa has -1.4% de-growth and Iran is failing miserably with -2.6% de-growth in income per head over the period. Another country that joins them is the UAE at 101, but with just 0.9% growth in income per head.

"Someone will say the 2014-16 oil collapse or the pandemic did this. Split the window at 2019, and Brazil and Iran do improve in the second half, and Russia dramatically so—from 0.1% a year before 2019 to 6.1% after, on energy prices and a war economy. But South Africa is negative in both halves, minus 1.8 and then minus 0.8, and the ranking of winners and losers barely changes," added Bhalla.

Countries In South Asia Outside BRICS

According to Bhalla, the comparison that should settle it is with the countries outside the BRICS membership. Among 125 countries with populations above three million and data for both years, the median BRICS member ranks 66th. The median BRICS growth rate is 2.7% a year. So is the median for everyone else. The club is precisely average, and only five of its eleven members beat the world median.

So who is at the top? Bangladesh is at first with an 8.8% growth rate a year, Vietnam at third, and Cambodia at fifth. Then Armenia, Nepal, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Costa Rica, Kenya. 23 of the 25 fastest-growing countries of the last fifteen years are not BRICS members.

Adding Bhalla said, "What they have in common is not a summit. It is trade access, investment and domestic reform—which is to say, they got on with it."

Where Does India Stand?

Among the five long-standing members, India is the second-best performer after China in the BRICS club but at 26th rank in the world at 5.2% a year. The country's income per head rose to 3.5% from 2.5%, while it moved from 13.4% of the world average to 18.7%.

Bhalla explained that it is also not enough, and the trade numbers say why. India's share of world goods exports was 1.71% in 2011. In 2023 it was 1.88%. Twelve years, seventeen hundredths of a percentage point. Over the same twelve years, Vietnam went from 0.52% to 1.50%—from $93 billion of goods exports to $345 billion, against India's $307 billion to $432 billion.

He lastly said, "A country with a fifteenth of our population has almost caught us, and did it while we were attending summits about the reform of the international order."