India's total external trade (exports plus imports including re-exports) in the year 1950-51 stood at Rs. 1214 crore. Since then, this has witnessed continuous increase with occasional downturns. During 2005-06 the value of India’s external trade reached Rs. 1085325 crore. A statement indicating India’s total export, import, total value of foreign trade and balance of trade from the year 1990-91 to 2005-06(Provisional), in rupee terms, is given in table.
During 2005-06 India’s exports of merchandise goods were valued at US$ 103 billion. With this, the overall target of US $92 billion fixed for the period has been exceeded. In rupee terms, the exports of merchandise goods during 2005-06 are valued at Rs. 454800 crore (P) compared to Rs. 375340 crore in 2004-05 with a growth rate of 21.17 per cent. India has achieved this in spite of spurt in international price of crude oil and higher demand for capital goods, raw materials and intermediate goods required by the rapidly expanding manufacturing sector of the economy.
With consistently high growth rate exceeding 20 per cent during the last four years of Tenth Five Year Plan, India’s share in world exports increased from 0.66 per cent in 2002 to 0.9 per cent in 2005.
At the same time, imports increased from Rs. 501065 crore in 2004-2005 to Rs. 630527(P) crore during 2005-06 thereby registering a growth of 25.84 per cent. In dollar terms imports increased by 27.71 per cent. In rupee terms the trade deficit in 2005-06 was Rs. (-) 175727(P) crore as against Rs. (-) 125725 crore during 2004-05.
India has trading relations with all the major trading blocks and all the geographical regions of the world. Region-wise and sub region-wise spread of our trade during 2004-2005 and 2005-06 is given in table 7.2. In dollar terms, Asia and Oceania accounted for 47 per cent of India’s total exports, followed by West Europe (22.34 per cent) and America (20.6 per cent) during 2005-06. India’s imports were highest from Asia and Oceania (24 per cent) followed by West Europe (17.33 per cent) and America (13 per cent), during the same period.
|
|||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April-March | April-March | ||||||||||
| 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | ||||||||
| West Europe | 19501.20 | 24563.10 | 25428.45 | 29834.80 | |||||||
| East Europe | 178.98 | 159.56 | 193.09 | 311.24 | |||||||
| CIS and Baltic States | 1088.61 | 1232.42 | 1960.07 | 2886.52 | |||||||
| Russia | 631.26 | 729.89 | 1322.74 | 1992.01 | |||||||
| Asia And Oceania | 39994.39 | 48222.08 | 39707.72 | 49297.49 | |||||||
| AFRICA | 5572.00 | 7138.66 | 4008.65 | 4683.93 | |||||||
| AMERICA | 16812.43 | 21193.20 | 9810.28 | 11064.54 | |||||||
| Latin American Countries | 2160.63 | 2955.96 | 2019.33 | 2372.12 | |||||||
