BRICS conclude Understanding on Data Economy Governance

Trade Ministers from BRICS countries convened in Brasília to exchange views on trade and investment challenges. They issued a Joint Declaration, expressing strong support to the multilateral trading system centred on the WTO, and emphasising the need to strengthen it against protectionist measures and fragmentation. The Ministers approved the BRICS Declaration on WTO Reform and Strengthening of the Multilateral Trading System (Annex I of the Joint Declaration), expressing serious concerns about rising unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures inconsistent with WTO rules.

A significant outcome was the approval of the BRICS Data Economy Governance Understanding (Annex II). This document acknowledges the key role of data for economic growth, innovation, and public governance, while also noting the challenges raised by lack of statistical data and regulatory fragmentation, hindering developing countries’ integration into the global digital economy.

The Understanding establishes a roadmap for future work, aiming to promote a fair data economy among BRICS nations. Key objectives include ensuring data sovereignty while facilitating efficient and trusted cross-border data flows in line with national frameworks. It seeks to leverage national statistical offices to measure the value of data and data flows, explore common regulatory practices for trade and competition, strengthen the role of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), and safeguard individual privacy and data protection. The implementation of the roadmap will involve consultations of the BRICS contact group on economic and trade issues (CGETI), and an annual BRICS Data Economy Session, to be held under the Digital Economy Working Group. BRICS countries also approved the Trade and Sustainable Development Framework (Annex III).