India, China trade deficit at $51.5 billion during April-October this fiscal
Image credit: BW Businessworld
On Friday, December 9, 2022, the Parliament was informed that the trade gap between China and India reached $51.5 billion between April and October of the current fiscal year.
According to the information given by Piyush Goyal, the minister of commerce and industry, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the deficit for 2021–2022 increased to $73.31 billion from $44.03 billion in 2020–2021.
The numbers show that from April through October of the current fiscal year, imports totalled $60.27 billion and exports totalled $8.77 billion.
He said that over the previous six years, the value of India’s exports to China had climbed by 78.2%, from $11.93 billion in 2014–15 to $21.26 billion in 2021–22.
On the other hand, imports from China rose from $60.41 billion in 2014–15 to $94.57 billion in 2021–22.
“The trade deficit with China increased by 2,346 per cent from $1.48 billion in 2004–05 to $36.21 billion in 2013–14. In contrast to this enormous growth, the trade deficit with China has since grown only 100% to $73.31 billion in 2021–2022, according to Mr Goyal.
He explained that the majority of the products imported from China were capital goods, intermediate goods, and raw materials, and they were used to satisfy demand in India’s rapidly developing sectors of electronics, telecom, and electricity.
“India’s transformation into a knowledge economy and a society that is empowered by technology can be linked to the increase in imports of electronic components, computer hardware and peripherals, telephone components, etc. The discrepancy between domestic supply and demand is a major factor in India’s dependence on imports in these areas, he continued.
Anupriya Patel, a minister of state for commerce and industry, responded to a query concerning imports from China by stating that many imports were inputs for additional manufacturing in India and exports from India.
Electronics, organic and inorganic chemicals, pharmaceutical and medical products, fertilizers, raw and manufactured materials for dyeing, tanning, and colouring, and pharmaceutical and medical products were the main imports from China.
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