Backed by increasing economic ties, the United States has emerged as India’s biggest trading partner in 2022-23. The bilateral trade between India and the US increased by 7.65 per cent to $128.55 billion in 2022-23 as against $119.5 billion in 2021-22, according to the provisional data of the commerce ministry, reported news agency PTI. It was $80.51 billion in 2020-21.
Exports to the US rose by 2.81 per cent to $78.31 billion in 2022-23 as against $76.18 billion in 2021-22, while imports grew by about 16 per cent to $50.24 billion, the data showed.
During 2022-23, India’s two-way commerce with China declined by about 1.5 per cent to $113.83 billion as against $115.42 billion in 2021-22.
Exports to China dipped by about 28 per cent to $15.32 billion in 2022-23, while imports rose by 4.16 per cent to $98.51 billion in the last fiscal. Trade gap widened to $83.2 billion in the last fiscal as against $72.91 billion in 2021-22.
Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President A Sakthivel said that increasing exports of goods such as pharmaceutical, engineering and gems and jewellery is helping India to push its shipments to America.
Rakesh Mohan Joshi, director of the Indian Institute of Plantation Management (IIPM), Bangalore, said that India provides huge trade opportunities for the US as India is the world’s third largest consumer market and the fastest growing market economy.
Interestingly, America is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus. In 2022-23, India had a trade surplus of $28 billion with the US. The data showed that China was India’s top trading partner since 2013-14 till 2017-18 and also in 2020-21. Before China, the UAE was the country’s largest trading partner.
In 2022-23, the UAE with $76.16 billion, was the third largest trading partner of India. It was followed by Saudi Arabia ($52.72 billion), and Singapore (USD 35.55 billion).