After the events of 2025 the first days of 2026 point to the likely persistence of elevated risks, fragmentation and volatility in the world economy. This is bound to be the backdrop for the key negotiations at the global level in the coming months, including during the Ministerial Conference of the WTO in March of 2026. Ahead of these discussions, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) produced an insightful outlook for the evolution of global trade for the coming decade, in which it looked at the shares of the key centers of world trade, including BRICS+ as a bloc. The report’s conclusions are in line with our expectations of continued growth in South-South trade and the rise in the share of global trade accounted for by the Global South.
In defining key country groups in global trade for the coming decade, the BCG report singles out the US; China; the Plurilateralist group that includes among others the EU, EFTA, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam; the BRICS+ group (apart from China) and the rest of the national economies in the global trading system. China and BRICS+ score 2 out 4 in terms of engagement and momentum with global institutions and multilateral trade; the Plurilateralist group is awarded 4 out of 4, while the US scores 1 out 4. In effect, the forecast assumes that the current trends in US trade policy may persist for most of the coming decade.
The BCG report then presents the forecasts for the growth in trade flows across these country groups by the year 2034. The resulting pattern points to an increasing role of South-South flows in global trade:
- China’s trade growth is projected to increase “as it surpasses the US as a trade partner with the Global South”[1]. The highest increase in trade is expected for the China-BRICS+ pair, where trade is projected to rise by 5.5%.
- BRICS+ economies without China are to exhibit a 3% CAGR with the rest of the world, growth of 2.5% among themselves as well as 1.5% with the US. As the report states, “the nations in the BRICS+ (excluding China) node would deepen their trade relationships with the Global South as well as with China”[2].
- US: share in the value of trade in goods is to decline as it maintains its America First orientation. According to BCG, the share of US imports covered by tariffs increased from 13% to 61% since January 2025[3].
- Plurilateralists: trade with BRICS+ at 2.5% CAGR, 3% CAGR with the rest of the world, 3% CAGR within the group.
The main projections in the report while duly conservative, likely focus mostly on the “substitution effects” in trade flows away from the less globalist US towards China and its partners in the Global South. The degree of such re-orientation in trade towards developing economies may be reinforced in the coming decade by trade liberalization impulses within BRICS+ (together with China) – indeed these topics featured in BRICS discussions in 2025, including the extra-ordinary BRICS summit convened by President Lula. Another factor that may render the re-direction of trade flows even more emphatic is the further expansion in the BRICS+ bloc over the course of the 2025-2034 period – partly via the further widening of the partnership circle as well as through core expansion. In fact, some of the ASEAN economies such as Vietnam and Malaysia (included into the Plurilateralist group in the report) are already BRICS partners, with Malaysia recently expressing its intention to join the BRICS core[4].
In the end, the trend towards the rise in the role of the Global South economies in world trade is clearly picking up steam as reflected in the global trade stats as well as the intensifying stream of analytical reports from the leading research companies. The events in 2026 will provide some clues as to whether the Global South and BRICS+ are capable of reinforcing these trends via South-South trade liberalization and greater economic policy coordination. In the very near term such impulses may be driven by such regions and blocs as ASEAN and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In the longer term a lot will depend on the development of economic ties between the largest BRICS powers, most notably China and India. In this respect, recent discussions on the possibility of India lifting restrictions for Chinese companies to bid for government contracts may be a positive sign for the prospects of normalization in bilateral economic ties[5].
The BCG report on “How to Prepare for a Patchwork World Order” is available via the following link: https://web-assets.bcg.com/fc/7b/fa1836dc43debec52291f5fae58d/2026-global-trade-report-jan-2026-web.pdf
Full citation: Aparna Bharadwaj, Dominic DeSapio, Marc Gilbert, Nikolaus Lang, Kasey Maggard, Michael McAdoo, Morten Seja, and Peter Ullrich. GLOBAL TRADE REPORT 2026 Trade in Transition How to Prepare for a Patchwork World Order. BCG Center for Geopolitics. January 2026
[1] https://web-assets.bcg.com/fc/7b/fa1836dc43debec52291f5fae58d/2026-global-trade-report-jan-2026-web.pdf
[2] https://web-assets.bcg.com/fc/7b/fa1836dc43debec52291f5fae58d/2026-global-trade-report-jan-2026-web.pdf
[3] https://web-assets.bcg.com/fc/7b/fa1836dc43debec52291f5fae58d/2026-global-trade-report-jan-2026-web.pdf
[4] https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2025/11/04/malaysia-content-with-being-brics-partner-country-for-now
[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-plans-scrap-curbs-chinese-firms-bidding-government-contracts-sources-say-2026-01-08/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Image by Quang Vu Ngoc from Pixabay