Foreign trade of India

Even before independence, the Government of India maintained semi-autonomous diplomatic relations. It had colonies (such as the Aden Settlement), who sent and received full missions,[3] and was a founder member of both the League of Nations[4] and the United Nations.[5] After India gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, it soon joined the Commonwealth of Nations and strongly supported independence movements in other colonies, like the Indonesian National Revolution.[6] The partition and various territorial disputes, particularly that over Kashmir, would strain its relations with Pakistan for years to come. During the Cold War, India adopted a foreign policy of non-alignment policy itself with any major power bloc. However, India developed close ties with the Soviet Union and received extensive military support from it.

India was the eighth largest exporter of commercial services in the world in 2016, accounting for 3.4% of global trade in services. India recorded a 5.7% growth in services trade in 2016–17.[10]

India exports approximately 7500 commodities to about 190 countries, and imports around 6000 commodities from 140 countries.[11] India exported US$318.2 billion and imported $462.9 billion worth of commodities in 2014.[12][13]

The Government of India's Economic Survey 2017–18 noted that five states — Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana — accounted for 70% of India's total exports. It was the first time that the survey included international export data for states. The survey found a high correlation between a state's Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) per capita and its share of total exports. With a high GSDP per capita but low export share, Kerala was the only major outlier because the state's GSDP per capita was heavily influenced by remittances.[14]

The survey also found that the largest firms in India contributed to a smaller percentage of exports when compared to countries like Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. The top 1% of India's companies accounted for 38% of total exports.[14]

The provisional data for March exports, released by the Ministry of Commerce at the end of April, reveals a grim situation. As per the data, India’s exports during March 2020 accounted for a little over $21.4 billion, despite a promising performance in just the previous month. This fall of approximately 35% year-on-year, as compared to March 2019 ($32.72 billion), is touching a multi-year low, and the figures are bound to fall further. A key thing to note is that exports have fallen across almost all of the commodity groups. Some commodities have registered a decline by over 30-40%, particularly engineering goods, textiles, meat, cereals, plastics and chemicals, which have been the major growth drivers of exports in recent years. As an immediate aftermath of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to multiple countries, global demand has fallen significantly and many orders have been cancelled. Further, the disruption of supply chains due to the ongoing lockdown has aggravated the poor performance of Indian exports -- and the situation is likely to worsen in the coming months, before recovery starts. India's electrical machinery and equipment has 40 per cent dependence on imports from China. However this number has reduced from 59.5 per cent in FY18 to 40 per cent in FY19. Although India has increased production of low-end electronic components. Import dependency on China is its major limitation. The automobile sector, which accounts for 7.5 per cent of India's GDP and a massive 49 per cent of the manufacturing GDP, is already facing slowdown. The coronavirus lockdown has made the situation worse for the auto sector as 10 to 30 per cent of automotive components are supplied from China. If factories do not resume activity in China, it could adversely affect the sector.

Summary table of recent India foreign trade (in billion $):[15][16] [17]

The top 10 commodity exports in 2007 were as follows:

The top 10 commodity imports in 2007 were as follows:

India's largest trading partners in order of value of total trade are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Germany, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. India is biggest exporter of pharmaceuticals, some food products and is a mixed economy.

• Economy of India
• Foreign relations of India
• Remittances to India
• Business process outsourcing to India
• List of exports of India
• Largest trading partners of India
• Indian diaspora
• Indianisation

• Directorate General of Foreign Trade
• Major Problems Hindering Indias Export Growth
• India Exports and Imports