BRICS Summit 2026: Who’s attending, why it matters and India’s role? | Explained

New Delhi is all set to host the 18th BRICS Summit this weekend.

The high-profile Summit, scheduled for 12–13 September 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, brings together leaders of BRICS Member and Partner Countries, as well as Outreach Invitees.

India is the BRICS Chair for the 2026 edition. The BRICS Chairship is guided by the theme: “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

At the two-day Summit, the leaders will also exchange views on strengthening intra-BRICS cooperation on common priorities and share perspectives on global and regional matters of mutual importance.

As many as 350 meetings and high-level engagements have already been held in over 25 cities across India to further strengthen the BRICS strategic partnership under India’s Chairmanship this year. A final meeting of theBRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will be held in Mumbai on September 9-10.

The Mumbai meeting will bring together finance ministers and central bank governors of BRICS member countries and comes just days ahead of the BRICS Leaders’ Summit.

What is BRICS?

BRICS was formed in 2006 as an informal group, with its first formal summit held on June 16, 2009.

BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries worldwide: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. It serves as a useful platform for consultation and cooperation on contemporary issues of global and regional significance.

India is a founding member of BRICS and has previously held its Chairmanship three times: in 2012, 2016, and 2021. India assumed its fourth BRICS Chairship on 1 January 2026. The year 2026 also marks a significant milestone as BRICS completes twenty years since its establishment.

A BRICS overview published by Brazil's central bank puts the expanded grouping at about 49% of the world's population, 39% of global GDP and 23% of international trade.

Why does BRICS matter?

BRICS is not a formal organisation, but a loose bloc of non-Western economies that coordinate economic and diplomatic efforts around a shared goal, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent think tank.

BRICS countries seek to build an alternative to what they see as the dominance of the Western viewpoint in major multilateral groupings, such as the World Bank, the Group of Seven (G7), and the UN Security Council, CFR says.

The formal BRICS expansion became effective on 1 January 2024, welcoming Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as new member states

The 2024 expansion came with a range of geopolitical implications representing growing economic and demographic heft: the eleven BRICS countries now comprise more than a quarter of the global economy and almost half of the world’s population, according to CFR.

“The group is poised to exert influence over the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, the shape of the global economic system, the competition between China and the West, and efforts to transition to clean energy,” writes Zongyuan Zoe Liu, CFR Expert and Maurice R Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies.

Growing membership also brings new challenges, however, including increasing pushback from Western countries and divisions within the bloc. Experts say that how BRICS members navigate those tensions will determine whether the group can become a more unified voice on the global stage.

Why BRICS matters for India?

From being largely an economic grouping of emerging economies, BRICS has over the years evolved into something much bigger: a platform through which countries of the Global South seek greater influence over the global economic and political order.

For India, BRICS brings it to the same table as China and Russia while also connecting it with major economies and energy producers across the developing world. The bloc provides an important platform for INDIA to position itself as a voice for developing and emerging economies, a major central foreign-policy objective.

The grouping has consistently pushed for reforms to institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, arguing that their governance structures do not adequately reflect the economic weight of emerging economies, something India also supports.

BRICS allows India to engage with China and Russia without abandoning its partnerships with the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and other countries.

The likely participation of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the September 2026 BRICS summit in India is particularly significant, as it could provide another high-level channel for managing the complex India-China relationship.

Vaibhav Maloo, Managing Director of Enso Group and President of Enso Foundation suggests India should use its BRICS presidency to secure faster export payments, fewer certification hurdles and financed infrastructure projects.

“India’s exports to BRICS were estimated at $82 billion in goods in FY2025–26 and $31.3 billion in services in calendar 2024, giving market access immediate commercial relevance,” Maloo said.

Opportunities include pharmaceuticals, engineering, digital services, energy security and investment in critical mineral supply chains, according to Maloo.

“Currency swaps could support liquidity and local currency trade settlement could reduce conversion costs, provided members address customer verification, data rules, capital controls, sanctions compliance and currency liquidity,” he said.

India's Balancing Act

During India's 2026 BRICS chairship, New Delhi has pushed for greater and more balanced trade among members, stronger trade in services, resilient global value chains and easier access to finance for small businesses.

For India, the challenge would be to strike a balancing act because the expanded BRICS includes both Iran and the UAE, which have opposing interests in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. At the same time. New Delhi also has important strategic and economic relationships with Washington and Gulf countries.

That makes India's BRICS chairmanship even more important.

At the recent BRICS Trade Ministers' meeting in Jaipur, members endorsed principles to strengthen MSME access to global markets and narrow the trade-finance gap.India also pushed for more resilient and diversified global value chains at the Jaipur meeting.

This matters because India's economic interests are increasingly tied to markets outside the traditional Western economies.

And the stakes are not merely diplomatic. The US-Iran war has affected energy security, shipping and global oil markets, with the Strait of Hormuz becoming a major vulnerability. Reuters reported on 31 August that analysts expected oil prices to remain above $80 per barrel in 2026 due to ongoing supply disruptions linked to the US-Iran conflict.

For India, this is particularly significant because West Asia is central to its energy security, trade and diaspora interests. Any prolonged disruption in the region can raise India's import bill, put pressure on inflation and complicate economic growth.

The US-Iran War

The US-Iran war has exposed the central contradiction within BRICS, according to analysts. While the grouping seeks to challenge a Western-dominated global order, its members have different interests when an actual geopolitical crisis erupts.

For India, the opportunity is to demonstrate whether its much-discussed strategic autonomy can translate into leadership, analysts believe. This is also a diplomatic challenge, they said.

Iran has sought to use BRICS to rally opposition to US military action, urging India, as chair, to help build a common position.

On 31 August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This was the first meeting between the two leaders since the US-Iran war broke out, impacting the Middle East and beyond, following US and Israeli attacks on Tehran earlier this year.

Pezeshkian urged Modi to use India's extensive contacts with various parties to help them move away from the path of war and bloodshed and return to the path of dialogue and agreement.

"We believe that the solution to the issues we face lies in dialogue and cooperation, and that all available capacities must be mobilised to prevent the spread of insecurity and conflict," he said, according to an Iranian readout.

Who all are attending BRICS Summit?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host the summit. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to attend, though China has not formally confirmed his participation.

If Xi visits, it would be his first trip to India since the 2019 informal summit in Mamallapuram with Modi. A Modi-Xi bilateral meeting on the sidelines is widely anticipated.

The Chinese leader's delegation could run to around 400 officials, roughly double the 2019 contingent, according to some media reports. There has been intense diplomacy between China and India, the latest being the 25th round of Special Representative talks, held in Beijing on 28 August, between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the Summit. This would be his second visit to India in under a year, following the annual bilateral summit in New Delhi in December 2025. Modi renewed the invitation to Putin in person when the two leaders met at the SCO summit in Bishkek on 31 August.

Who else are attending?

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

-Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

-Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto

-Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

-Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed

-Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko

-Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev,

-Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim

-Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul

-United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will likely take part, though a formal announcement is pending.

What PM Modi said at the last BRICS summit

The 17th annual BRICS Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from July 6–7, 2025, under the chairship of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

At the Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for urgent reforms to global “governance institutions”, underlining the need to give developing countries a stronger voice in international decision-making.

The 2025 BRICS declaration also emphasised a more representative and inclusive international order and reform of the multilateral system.

(With agency inputs)