Where Data Tells the Story
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For a bloc built on the premise of challenging Western economic dominance, BRICS remains a strikingly lopsided club. New 2025 trade data from the International Trade Center lays bare an uncomfortable truth for the group's aspirations of multipolarity: it is really a story about one country and everyone else.
Summing China's exports across all nine other members yields roughly $523 billion. Summing its imports from them adds a further $361 billion. Put together, trade flows touching China total roughly $884 billion, against a grand total of about $1.18 trillion in intra-bloc trade recorded across the entire matrix. That works out to China accounting for something close to three quarters of all bilateral trade value inside BRICS.
Strip China out of the matrix entirely and add up what remains, the 72 bilateral relationships among Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the UAE trading with one another. The total comes to roughly $294 billion. China's exports alone, to the bloc, exceed that figure. One country selling to nine others outweighs those nine trading amongst themselves.