India-China Trade Touches All-Time High Of $135.98 Billion In 2022
The total India-China trade for 2022 has climbed to 135.98 billion, overtaking the $125 billion mark a year earlier.
The trade between India and China has touched an all-time high of $135.98 billion in 2022 while New Delhi's trade deficit with Beijing crossed for the first time a $100 billion mark despite frosty bilateral relations, according to data released by the Chinese customs on Friday.
The total India-China trade for 2022 has climbed to 135.98 billion, overtaking the $125 billion mark a year earlier by registering an 8.4% increase, according to the annual Chinese customs data.
China’s exports to India climbed to $118.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21.7%.
During 2022, China’s imports from India dwindled to $17.48 billion, a year-on-year decline of 37.9%.
The trade deficit for India stood at $101.02 billion, crossing the 2021 figure of $69.38 billion.
This is the first time the trade deficit, a serious concern constantly expressed by India, has crossed the $100 billion mark.
In 2021, the overall trade with China totaled $125.62 billion, an increase of 43.32% year on year crossing the $100 billion mark for the first time.
The trade deficit in 2021 stood at $69.56 billion as India’s imports from China witnessed an increase of 46.14% to reach $97.59 billion.
India’s exports to China increased by 34.28% year on year to reach $28.03 billion in 2021.
The trade between the two countries continued to boom despite border tensions following the military standoff in eastern Ladakh in May 2020. According to an official brief on trade posted on the Indian Embassy website in Beijing, “the rapid expansion of India-China bilateral trade since the beginning of this century has propelled China to emerge as India’s largest goods trading partner by 2008”.
“Since the beginning of the last decade, bilateral trade between the two countries recorded exponential growth. From 2015 to 2021, India-China bilateral trade grew by 75.30%, an average yearly growth of 12.55%”, it said.
Also, on the global trade front despite the weakening of the U.S. and European demand and the Covid-19 controls leading to periodic shutdowns of several cities including Shanghai, China posted a trade surplus of $877.6 billion in 2022.
As per the customs data, China’s overall exports in 2022 rose by 7% and imports rose by 1.1%, while China’s trade surplus last year stood at $877.6 billion. China’s exports increased to $3.95 trillion, decreasing from 2021's high growth of 29.9% while imports increased by 1.1% to $2.7 trillion, compared to the previous year's 30.1% rise.