The creation of the BRICS partnership circle in 2023-2024 notably expanded the outreach of the bloc, with dozens of emerging economies expressing their intention to join the BRICS+ platform
Thursday, November 13, 2025
By Yaroslav Lissovolik
The creation of the BRICS partnership circle in 2023-2024 notably expanded the outreach of the bloc, with dozens of emerging economies expressing their intention to join the BRICS+ platform. As a result, the BRICS+ bloc now includes 10 core members plus Saudi Arabia as an invited country and 10 BRICS partners, namely Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Uganda and Nigeria. In effect the BRICS now has two groups of countries, with the partnership circle participating in the key meetings of the BRICS+ bloc, including the BRICS annual summits. But rather than the BRICS partnership belt serving merely as a BRICS engagement group for a widening circle of developing economies, there may be a case for transforming this circle of friends into an active engine of BRICS economic cooperation. By endowing the partnership circle with the latitude to launch coordination initiatives and pursue economic/trade alliances, the BRICS may thus create an additional development track that supports the efforts of the core economies in devising, launching and scaling new economic policy initiatives.
One of the key features in the current composition of the BRICS partnership circle is the presence of the core BRICS economies' regional partners - as is the case with Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand with respect to Indonesia (core member) in ASEAN or Belarus and Kazakhstan with regard to Russia (core member) in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Uzbekistan is a member of the Eurasian Development Bank along with the members of the EAEU, while Nigeria and Uganda are partners with their African core BRICS economies in the AfCFTA. Accordingly, the BRICS partnership belt may with time work together with the BRICS core in exploring the modalities of creating a circle of partnership among the respective regional integration arrangements and regional development institutions where core BRICS and BRICS partner economies are members.
Developing a network of trade alliances within the partnership circle and building the trade connections between this circle and the core BRICS economies should become the key focus of the broader BRICS+ in the near term, given the protectionist pressure exerted on BRICS in 2025. Indeed, our very first essay that introduced the concepts of BRICS+ and BRICS++ called for the creation of a BRICS partnership circle predicated on trade alliances and FTA agreements. The presence of such economies with a diversified network of FTAs as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam that form part of ASEAN as one of the world's leading blocs in advancing economic openness, creates opportunities to use the partnership circle as an additional engine in boosting trade and investment cooperation across the BRICS+ platform.
Another possible area of cooperation in the partnership belt may be the creation of a "BRICS partnership Troika" that could represent the expanded BRICS+ along with core members in outreach meetings as well as in global organizations and forums. With the partnership circle likely further expanding in the coming years, a Troika format could present BRICS+ with a relatively parsimonious format of representation in external discussions - both at the level of the core as well as the partnership belt. Creating a "BRICS partnership Troika" would also add dynamism within the partnership belt itself, with each of the members obtaining the opportunity to devise BRICS+ priorities and actively cooperate with their Troika partners in testing new formats and mechanisms that may be taken up jointly with the core BRICS members. The BRICS core members could also weigh the merits of a creating a "hybrid Troika" format in which the core BRICS Troika is supplemented by a rotating presidency from the partnership circle.
The BRICS+ group may also explore the possibilities of creating preferential treatment regimes for the partnership circle members in the economic sphere, which could incentivize other emerging markets to join the BRICS group of friends and may include the following:
- Fast-track to NDB membership
- Membership and access to the resources of the BRICS CRA (once it is revamped to become fully operational)
- Fast-track to FTAs within the BRICS+ network
- Fast-track to concluding Digital Economic Agreements (DEAs)
- Fast-track to agreements in the sphere of financial market integration
The pursuit of DEAs within the partnership belt may be particularly promising, given the presence of heavyweights such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam from ASEAN that is itself one of the most active regional integration blocs in advancing digital economic cooperation in the world economy. Another reason why this may be important for the partnership belt is the notable presence of landlocked economies such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Uganda and Bolivia in the group that account for half of total membership. Some of these economies are unique in terms of their remoteness from coastal infrastructure, with Kazakhstan being the largest landlocked economy in the world, Uzbekistan being uniquely doubly-landlocked (surrounded by landlocked economies) and Belarus being the largest landlocked economy in Europe. Such countries are in particular need of connectivity projects - hence the need for the fast-track to join the NDB Bank; and they greatly benefit from digital economic development and trade as a way to deal with the "gravity of distance" - something that is advanced via digital economic agreements.
A separate track within BRICS+ to address the needs of developing landlocked economies may be coordinated by the five landlocked BRICS partners with Ethiopia that is a member of the BRICS core and the most populous landlocked economy in the world. One of the possible focus areas for this track could be to expedite and facilitate the accession of BRICS+ LLCs to the WTO as well as to support their economic modernization through BRICS+ joint efforts in international forums and organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank. Another possible area of cooperation is the role that the BRICS+ LLCs can play in working together with the regional development institutions (RDBs and RFAs) of the Global South as well as with global organizations such as the NDB and the World Bank in developing a targeted portfolio of projects supporting transportation connectivity and digital development in LLDCs. Advancing the UN's Awaza Program of Action for LLDCs in key BRICS forums, including the BRICS+ summits and the BRICS Summit Decalarations, may also become an important connection between core BRICS economies and their partners.
Overall, empowering the partnership circle to become a platform for launching new formats of economic cooperation, with a focus on pragmatic measures targeting networks of trade accords and investment project portfolios could serve to revitalize the development of the BRICS+ bloc. It would widen the array of development tracks and provide optionality/back-up options in cases when the BRICS core may be encountering a slowdown in decision-making or an outright stalemate. From the point of view of business theory, the partnership circle is a key asset of the BRICS+ platform, whose return on assets (ROA) could be enhanced by enabling this sub-group in BRICS+ to become a source of new development impulses and policy initiatives. Exploring the possibilities that the partnership circle could deliver through the prism of such business models as VRIO[2] and the Resource-Based View (RBV) may enable the BRICS+ to move away from a static view of assets ("what we have") to a dynamic/capability-based approach ("what we can do with what we have"). Further expansion in the membership within the BRICS partnership circle could be guided in part by such considerations of greater efficiency and the potential increments to the wider BRICS+ trade and investment cooperation that new members could deliver.
Yaroslav Lissovolik is Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.