Bilateral trade between India and China leaps to over 62.7% in the first half of 2021 while total trade increased to $57.48 billion.
While Indian exports to China picked up by 69.6% and the trade deficit climbed to 55.6%. The India and China bilateral trade in the first half of the year totalled USD 57.48 billion, up 62.7 per% on year, considered the highest in recent years amid the Ladakh impasse and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released by China’s Customs.
Though Indian exports to China picked up with 69.6% year on year increase, the trade deficit, a structural problem for India for a long, climbed to 55.6%
According to data released by China’s Customs, India’s exports to China reached USD 14.724 billion, up 69.6 per cent year on year in the first six months and India’s imports from China amounted to USD 42.755 billion, up 60.4%.
China’s overall trade in the first half of the year rose by 27.1% year on year to 18.07 trillion yuan (about USD 2.79 trillion) in the first six months, according to the customs data. The growth marks an increase of 22.8% from the pre-epidemic level in 2019.
Exports jumped 28.1% from a year earlier, while imports climbed 25.9% in yuan terms.
The trade deficit for the first six months of the year stood at USD 28.03 billion, up 55.6 per cent year on year, according to official sources. But the trade figures were regarded as significant as India-China relations were bogged down with the standoff between the two militaries at eastern Ladakh since May last year.
While the COVID-19 second wave has resulted in a major increase in China’s exports, especially the oxygen concentrators, ventilators, monitors, and medical materials and drugs, India’s exports to China were boosted by the increase in iron ore, steel, aluminium and copper.
From January to April this year, China shipped a total of 20.28 million tonnes of iron ore from India, an increase of nearly 66 per cent from the same period of last year, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of India’s total iron ore export, the state-run Global Times reported.
It quoted the data released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry stating that China had exported more than 26,000 ventilators and oxygen generators, more than 15,000 monitors, and nearly 3,800 tonnes of medical materials and drugs to India in April. Last year the India-China trade totalled to USD 77.67 billion, which was lower than the USD 85.47 billion in 2019.
The Usual Doublespeak. #MadeInIndia #Jumla pic.twitter.com/Lt0wybWHxS
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 22, 2021
India’s Imports from China
2019-20: $56.31 Billion
2020-21: $68.46 BillionIndia’s Trade Deficit with China
2019-20: $42.96 Billion
2020-21: $46.54 BillionTrade deficit is increasing much more in 2021-22. But just banning TikTok was enough retaliation for 0.56-inch PM. https://t.co/0cp87dbdGW
— Srivatsa (@srivatsayb) October 22, 2021
In the meantime, China continues to stealthily take over Indian territory entering Arunachal Pradesh and the LAC with “provocative behaviour and unilateral attempts to alter status quo” on the LAC and to fully protect the country’s security interests, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.
Bagchi said, “It was the amassing of a large number of troops by the Chinese side, their provocative behaviour and unilateral attempts to alter status quo in contravention of all our bilateral agreements that resulted in serious disturbance of peace and tranquillity along the LAC in eastern Ladakh.”
It seems strange that despite the Chinese invasion into India, brutal massacre of our jawans by the Chinese, the Government of India increases its trade with China!