Beijing:
Bilateral trade between India and China is up 15.3% in the first quarter of this year to more than $31 billion, according to trade data released by Chinese customs on Wednesday, despite strained relations due to the protracted military standoff in eastern Ladakh.
During the three-month period from January to March, Chinese exports to India rose to $27.1 billion.
Last year, India-China bilateral trade reached an all-time high of more than $125 billion.
The upward trend appeared to continue as bilateral trade totaled $31.96 billion in the first quarter of 2022, up 15.3 percent from the same period last year, state-run Global Global Trade said. times. Customs (GAC).
Between January and March this year, the trade deficit soared to $22.23 billion, while Chinese exports to India reached $27.1 billion — more than five times that — while imports hit $4.87 billion, the report said.
Last year, Chinese exports to India rose 46.2 percent to $97.52 billion, while India’s exports to China grew 34.2 percent to $28.14 billion.
India’s trade deficit grew by $69.38 in 2021.
Commenting on trade between India and China, Liu Zongyi, secretary general of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation, told the paper that “the continued increase in bilateral trade demonstrated the complementarity of two major emerging economies, despite the tensions from global geopolitical changes.” Mr Liu said that in addition to electronic devices such as mobile phones, about 70 percent of the chemical and other manufactured goods used by the Indian pharmaceutical industry are imported from China.
Compared with the 28.3 percent year-on-year increase in India’s imports from China in the first three months, exports to China fell 26.1 percent year-on-year.
Mr. Liu explained in the first quarter of 2021: China imported large amounts of iron ore from India, which makes up a large part of India’s exports to China.
But from the second quarter of last year, China reduced imports from India, he said.
Trade continues to grow despite the two-year stalemate between the armies of India and China in eastern Ladakh.
Overall, China’s foreign trade maintained its growth trajectory in the first quarter of 2022, despite increasingly complex internal and external challenges and periodic shutdowns of several cities in the country due to the increase in COVID-19 cases.
China’s foreign trade registered a 13 percent year-over-year increase to $1.48 trillion.