India's Trade with Different Countries/Alliances
India's total external trade (exports plus imports including re-exports) in the year 1950-51 stood at Rs. 1214 crore. Since then, this has witnessed continuous increase with occasional downturns. During 2007-08 the value of India’s external trade reached Rs. 1605022 crore. A statement indicating India’s total export, import, total value of foreign trade and balance of trade from the year 1991-92 to 2007-08(P), in rupee terms, is given in the table.
India's exports of merchandise goods touched the target of US$159 billion in 2007-08 recording a growth of around 26% in dollar terms. In Rupee terms, the exports of merchandise goods during 2007-08 was valued at Rs. 640172 compared to Rs. 571779 crore in 2006-07 with a growth rate of 12%. India’s growth of exports is much higher than that of the world economy as well as many major economies of the world.
At the same time, imports increased from Rs. 840506 crore in 2006-2007 to Rs. 964850 crore during 2007-2008 thereby registering a growth of 29% in rupee terms. The trade deficit in 2007-08 was increased to Rs. (-)324678 crore as against Rs. (-) 268727 crore during 2006-07.
India has trading relations with all the major trading blocks and all the geographical regions of the world. Region-wise and sub region-wise spread of India’s trade during 2006-07 and 2007-08 is given in table 7.2. In dollar terms, Asia & Asean accounted for 51.54 per cent of India’s total exports, followed by Europe (22.99%) and America (17.04%) . India’s imports were highest from Asia & Asean (62.52%) followed by Europe (19.97%) and America (9.05%), during the same period.
(P) Provisional Figures
| Region | Exports | Imports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April-March | April-March | |||
| 2006-07 | 2007-08(P) | 2006-07 | 2007-08(P) | |
| 1. Europe | 130639 | 147182 | 181525 | 192641 |
| 1.1 EU countries 27) | 121296 | 136113 | 134990 | 139555 |
| 1.2 Other WE countries | 8979 | 10642 | 46265 | 52942 |
| 1.2 East Europe | 364 | 427 | 269 | 144 |
| 2. Africa | 38062 | 44922 | 51519 | 60151 |
| 3. America | 109706 | 109094 | 88843 | 87336 |
| 4. Asia and ASEAN | 285092 | 329952 | 497327 | 603196 |
| 5. CIS & Baltics | 6688 | 6996 | 17481 | 15240 |
| 6. Unspecified Region | 1593 | 2027 | 3812 | 6286 |
India-Europe Trade
Europeans countries account for about 22.5 per cent of India's total trade while India's exports to Europe during 2006-07 were US$ 28.87 billion. During this year, bilateral trade increased by 26 per cent over 2005-06. While India's export to Europe recorded a growth of 17 per cent, India's import from Europe grew by 33 per cent. The top five items of India's exports to Europe are ready-made garments including accessories, gems & jewellery, machinery & instruments, petroleum (crude & products) and transport equipment. The top five items of India's imports from Europe are machinery (except electrical & electronics), pearls/precious, semi-previous stones, electronic goods, transport equipments and iron & steel.
Trade and Investment relations with European Union
The European Union (EU) presently consists of 27 countries. These countries are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK, Bulgaria and Romania.
India and EU enjoy healthy economic relations. These relations have been built on the foundation of (i) India-EU Corporation Agreement on Partnership and Development which came into effect in August, 1994 and (ii) India-EU Strategic Partnership which was announced in September, 2005. India has also has bilateral economic Agreements with a number of individual EU countries in the areas of trade, investments and avoidance of double taxation. India has agreements for investments and promotions/protections with 22 countries of Europe, including 17 countries of EU. Similarly, agreements for avoidance of double taxation exist with 26 countries in EU.
India-EU bilateral relations are reviewed at the official level by the India-EC Joint Commission. This had its last meeting in July 2008. Three Sub-Commissions on Trade, Economic Cooperation and Development Cooperation and nine Joint Working Groups on agriculture and marine products, textiles, information technology & communications, consular matters, environment, steel, food processing industries, pharmaceuticals & bio-technology and technical barriers to trade (TBT)/sanitary and photo sanitary (SPS) issues are functioning and their reports are considered by Joint Commission.
India-Africa Trade
There are more than 50 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Traditionally relations between India and countries of Africa continent have remained close and cordial. In spite of various constraints such as distance, language barriers, lack of information etc. India's trade with the region has grown rapidly. The trade between India and SSA region has grown from US$ 7572.65 million in 2004-05 to US$ 197,053.37 million in 2007-08 registering a growth of 32.34%.
India's exports to the region have increased by 30.85% from US$ 4218.23 million in 2004-05 to US$ 83,535.94 million in 2007-08 and the imports form the region have increased by 42.70% from US$ 3354.42 million in 2004-05 to US$ 111,517.43 million in 2007-08.
Source: National Portal Content Management Team, Reviewed on: 31-03-2009 
