Bangladesh approaches the New Delhi BRICS Summit at a critical economic moment. After years of impressive export-led growth and social progress, the country is contending with persistent inflation, slower growth, pressure on its banking sector, and subdued private investment.
The World Bank projects growth of 3.9% in the 2025-26 financial year, while the International Monetary Fund expects consumer-price inflation of around 9.2% in 2026.
Bangladesh is also preparing to eventually graduate from the United Nations’ least-developed-country category. Graduation is a major national achievement, but it brings the challenge of competing without some of the trade preferences that previously supported Bangladeshi exports.
India’s leadership of BRICS offers Bangladesh a bridge between these immediate pressures and its next phase of development. When leaders gather in New Delhi on September 12-13, India will be representing not only one of the world’s largest emerging economies but also the country with the deepest capacity to connect Bangladesh to regional markets, electricity networks, transport corridors, and development institutions.
Bangladesh is not a BRICS member, but it is a member of the New Development Bank. India played a founding role in creating the NDB as an institution capable of financing the priorities of developing economies. Bangladesh’s membership now gives it direct access to an expanding source of infrastructure finance.
The bank is already financing Bangladeshi projects in solar energy and electricity distribution. Its wider discussions with Dhaka cover bridges, railway modernization, urban transit, and maintenance infrastructure. These are precisely the investments Bangladesh requires to restore productivity, attract private capital, and create employment.
Energy cooperation demonstrates India’s role as a regional champion particularly clearly. Bangladesh already imports substantial electricity from India. It has also begun receiving Nepalese hydropower through the Indian grid, creating a historic three-country electricity arrangement.
India’s transmission infrastructure and regulatory cooperation allow clean power generated in the Himalayas to reach consumers in Bangladesh. Bangladesh gains a more diversified electricity supply, Nepal gains export revenue, and India strengthens the resilience of the entire regional grid.
Connectivity provides a second pillar. India and Bangladesh have revived railway links, expanded road connections, and increased the use of inland waterways. The operational use of Chittagong and Mongla ports is creating shorter routes between mainland India and its northeastern states. Bangladesh, in turn, is gaining new opportunities in logistics, port services, manufacturing, and regional commerce.
India’s approach recognizes Bangladesh not simply as a transit route but as an essential economic partner in the Bay of Bengal. Better connectivity increases the value of Bangladesh’s geographic position and helps link its businesses with India’s large consumer market and the economies of Nepal and Bhutan.
This integration matters as Bangladesh prepares for its post-LDC future. The country’s next stage of growth depends on diversifying beyond ready-made garments and moving into higher-value textiles, pharmaceuticals, food processing, electronics, shipbuilding, and digital services. Indian companies, technology networks, and supply chains provide a natural platform for that transition.
India is already emphasizing trade finance, start-up cooperation, resilient supply chains, and support for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. These priorities can complement the growing start-up and digital connections between India and Bangladesh. Affordable finance and easier access to regional markets would help Bangladeshi enterprises expand at a time when domestic credit conditions remain difficult.
Climate resilience is another area in which the two countries’ interests converge. India’s satellite capabilities, forecasting networks, digital public infrastructure, and disaster-management experience add regional capacity to Bangladesh’s internationally respected community-based preparedness.
Cooperation across the Bay of Bengal can improve cyclone warnings, coastal protection, resilient housing, emergency communications, and climate-smart agriculture. The NDB’s focus on sustainable infrastructure gives Bangladesh an additional route for financing projects that protect lives while strengthening economic security.
Neighbours prosper most when connectivity produces balanced benefits. Shared power networks, waterways, railways, and ports create economic interdependence that no country can build alone. India’s size gives it the capacity to initiate these systems.
Disagreements between Dhaka and New Delhi will continue to require patient diplomacy. No mature relationship is free of difficult questions. Yet the architecture of cooperation is now far deeper than any single political moment. Electricity continues to flow, trains and ships continue to move, and development projects continue to connect the two economies.
Rishi Suri is the chief editor at The Daily Milap, one of India’s oldest and largest Urdu newspapers.