BRICS+ Series: Industrial Cooperation and the BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies

The BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies (BCIC), which was launched in April 2025 in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), functions as a one-stop centre that offers integrated services, capacity building, and technical support that is focused on Industry 4.0 competencies, digital manufacturing, and productivity enhancement. It is viewed as both a knowledge hub and a practical resource for private sector actors seeking to modernise processes, adopt advanced technologies, and navigate competitive industrial ecosystems.

India’s formal participation was concluded through a Trust Fund Agreement signed between Department For Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade of India (DPIIT) and UNIDO, creating an institutional framework for cooperation. Under this agreement, the National Productivity Council (NPC), which is an autonomous body under DPIIT, has been designated as India’s nodal centre within the BCIC network. The NPC’s role will be inclusive of coordinating India’s contribution to BRICS industrial initiatives, driving training programmes, and facilitating productivity-enhancing practices that are able to bridge capability gaps in the manufacturing sector.

Why this matters for India and the Global South

The timing and substance of India’s engagement with the BCIC are important for several reasons. Firstly, India’s industrial strategy has long wanted to balance self-reliance with global integration, exemplified by programmes like Make in India, production-linked incentives (PLI), and digitalisation drives aimed at strengthening competitiveness and export capacity. MSMEs are at the center of that vision: they account for a substantial share of GDP, millions of jobs, and a large fraction of manufactured exports. Participation in BCIC will give Indian MSMEs exposure to international best practices and emerging technologies at a scale that is otherwise difficult to achieve through domestic programmes alone.

Secondly, BCIC’s focus on Industry 4.0 including automation, artificial intelligence, data integration, and smart manufacturing, pays attention to a key bottleneck for many MSMEs in the global South, and that is the gap between digital potential and actual technological adoption. By facilitating cross-national knowledge exchange and technical assistance, the BCIC can help firms leapfrog traditional stages of industrial development, reducing costs and increasing resilience in global value chains.

Thirdly , in a world where Western industrial blocs often shape norm-setting institutions, India’s engagement within  BCIC under UNIDO’s umbrella reinforces an alternative multilateral architecture rooted in South-South cooperation. BRICS nations , originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, now expanded to include several other emerging economies,  represent over one-third of global GDP and a significant share of global population. Working through this framework thus allows emerging economies to align around shared priorities such as inclusive growth, sustainable industrialisation, and equitable technology access rather than purely competitive geopolitics.

Beyond cooperation: Challenges and comparative benchmarks

While the BCIC offers promise, its success will really depend on effective implementation at national and firm levels. India’s MSMEs have previously struggled with barriers ranging from limited access to finance and skill shortages to regulatory complexity and slow uptake of digital tools. Although the BCIC sets a collaborative platform, structural constraints like infrastructure gaps and uneven digital readiness have to be addressed in tandem if India’s smaller firms are to fully benefit.

Comparisons with other emerging industrial players are instructive. China’s rapid ascent as a manufacturing powerhouse was encouraged not just by state support, but by coordinated industrial parks, robust infrastructure, and export-oriented clusters. India’s industrial base, on the other hand, has been more dispersed, with policymakers now emphasising targeted ecosystems to replicate export-led growth. In this context, BCIC’s role as a network platform can help India and other BRICS members learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses rather than compete on unequal terms.

Toward a shared industrial future

To conclude, India’s accession to the BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies is reflective of a broader intent to reshape global industrial cooperation through collective action, where emerging economies pool resources and knowledge to overcome shared developmental hurdles. For the global South, this is more than a strategic alignment , it is a tangible step towards industrial transformation that is inclusive, technology-driven, and equitable. Whether this translates into measurable improvements in productivity, export diversification, and MSME dynamism will mainly depend on how such multilateral commitments are translated into real-world capacity building and national policy coherence.

As the world navigates shifting economic orders, platforms like the BCIC offer a vision of cooperation that amplifies the voice and agency of the global South, positioning industrial development not as a zero-sum game, but as a shared journey toward innovation, resilience, and sustainable growth.

Written by:

*Dr Iqbal Survé

Past chairman of the BRICS Business Council and co-chairman of the BRICS Media Forum and the BRNN

*Sesona Mdlokovana

Associate at BRICS+ Consulting Group

Africa Specialist

**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.

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