The ongoing reconfiguration of the global economy led by the developing world will give rise to new growth paradigms and new growth champions with some of the landlocked economies having the potential to move up decisively in the global growth rankings
The reigning paradigm of the breakthroughs and successes in economic growth performance in the past has largely revolved around coastal regions and countries such as South Korea, Chile or Singapore that were well integrated into global trade and markets via lower barriers and transportation costs. While these advantages continue to be valid and significant, there appear to be shifts in the global growth league tables that are suggestive of a stronger performance staged by landlocked economies. In the IMF’s 2024 database list of the world’s top-10 fastest growing economies half of the countries are landlocked (Niger, Kyrgyz republic, Rwanda, Tajikistan, Ethiopia). In terms of IMF’s 2025 GDP growth forecasts, 6 out of 10 fastest growing economies are landlocked, while half of the top-20 fastest growing economies in 2025 are landlocked countries; for 2026 GDP growth projections 7 out of top-10 growth outperformers are landlocked. While such patterns may reflect more scope for higher growth from lower levels of production/development and the greater vulnerability of more open economies to bouts of protectionism currently afflicting international markets, there may be fundamental and long-term factors driving such outperformance.
In fact, the drivers of the strong growth of landlocked economies are quite diverse and include some of the fundamental trends affecting the global economy. We highlight the following factors favoring landlocked countries:
– The rise in South-South trade and investment against the backdrop of mounting protectionism from some of the largest advanced economies.
– Progress in regional integration across the developing world that benefits landlocked economies through connectivity projects.
– The rise of the world’s digital economy that serves to lower the gravity of distance and lack of geographical access to global markets.
– Climate change may also play a role as the rise in sea levels due to global warming may shift more of the global economic activity inland.
– Alternative gateways to development and sources of development support, including via the creation of new institutions such as NDB and connectivity initiatives such as the BRI.
Of all of the blocs and groupings in the world economy, the BRICS is in a position to play a pivotal role in advancing the development of landlocked economies. While none of the G7 economies are landlocked, BRICS has recently strengthened ties and connection with such countries across all of the main regions of the Global South. In Africa Ethiopia, the largest landlocked economy in the world by population, became a member of the BRICS core circle in 2023-2024. In 2025 the creation of the BRICS partnership belt introduced 5 landlocked economies into the BRICS+ circle: Bolivia (the largest landlocked economy in Latin America by territory), Kazakhstan (the largest landlocked economy in the world by territory), Belarus (the largest landlocked economy in Europe by territory), Uzbekistan (the only large doubly landlocked country in the world), Uganda (one of Africa’s most dynamic landlocked economies and the second largest landlocked economy in the world by population). Until the recent accession of Vietnam to the BRICS partnership belt, landlocked economies held a majority in the BRICS partnership circle (5 out of 9 BRICS partners).
Addressing the needs of landlocked economies dovetails some of the key development priorities pursued by the BRICS bloc, most notably:
– Advancing greater South-South economic cooperation (supporting landlocked economies may generate multiplier effects in terms of connectivity for neighboring developing economies)
– Supporting regional integration across the developing world
– Developing alternative connectivity routes in the world economy
– Providing support to the most vulnerable economies of the Global South (Xi’s “no one is left behind” dictum) contrary to the “cumulative causation” paradigm of the status-quo
– Supporting regions of the Global South such as Africa with a significant number of large landlocked countries
Granted, the emergence of a new pack of growth leaders from within the continental depths of the world economy (de profundis) is not a foregone conclusion. A lot will be riding on the success of the BRICS+ framework in promoting South-South cooperation and in building alternative supporting mechanisms for developing economies that are more tailored to addressing the needs of disadvantaged economies. In this respect membership of such landlocked economies as Ethiopia in NDB (whose application is already being reviewed by the Bank) is crucial for building intra-continental connectivity linkages across the Global South. It may also be expedient for the Final Declarations of BRICS summits to accord due consideration to the support for landlocked economies, including in the context of advancing the United Nations recently adopted Awaza Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2024–2034. Supporting the growth of landlocked economies may deliver the modernization success stories that may strengthen BRICS credibility on the international stage.
For investors and portfolio managers, the trends in the global economy described above may be suggestive of potential new pockets of growth coming from the emerging market space. The expansion in the supporting mechanisms for some of the landlocked economies and the greater connectivity activism across the Global South may attenuate some of the macroeconomic imbalances in these economies, allowing thus more scope for the growth potential to be realized. The roadmap for such breakout nations of the developing world has already been explored in our previous publications (in 2023 we pointed to the scenario of some of the landlocked economies turning into breakout growth outperformers) – in our view it will be partly a function of the broader global and regional dynamics between the leading economies of the world and the possibilities for some of the landlocked in-between economies to capitalize on the growing economic interaction between the heavyweights of the Global South. The ongoing reconfiguration of the global economy led by the developing world will give rise to new growth paradigms and new growth champions with some of the landlocked economies having the potential to move up decisively in the global growth rankings.
Yaroslav Lissovolik is a Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.
