For Indian exporters, the next big opportunity may not lie in the traditional markets of the US and Europe; it may lie in the countries that, like India, are themselves part of the Global South. This is one of the clearest inferences from the recent surge in trade between these countries. The South-South merchandise trade—especially between developing economies—reached $7.2 trillion in 2025, up 17.2% from 2024 and more than 14 times from around $500 billion in 1995, according to UNCTAD. In fact, the share of South-South trade in 2025 in global merchandise trade increased to 28% from 11% in 2020. These numbers highlight the growing significance of the Global South in world commerce.
The shift, experts point out, is particularly significant because these developing countries are no longer simply exporting finished goods to rich economies; they are increasingly supplying industrial components, intermediate goods, and key raw materials and inputs to one another, creating production networks that cut across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
