India ASEAN Trade

India’s trade relations with ASEAN have been strengthened since 1991, as a part of her ‘Look East Policy’. Her complementary economic structure with ASEAN involves significant mutual gains.  Though ASEAN’s population is less than half of India, but their global trade is more than five time of India. The trade dependence between India and ASEAN countries has been increased over the period. But as many developed countries following protectionist trade practices, the developing world needs to find out ways to steer their exports in the world market. Therefore in order to understand the possible trade gain in Indo-ASEAN trade relations, it is very important to understand the commodities level trade possibilities, as we have seen that India and ASEAN countries shared lot of commonality in their imports. Merely studying RCA and RID in isolation may not help in developing right strategies, as RCA analysis will tell us about the comparative advantage that a country enjoys in the export of certain commodities in general, it does not necessarily tell us about the specific import requirements of the countries being focused for exports. So, although India may have a comparative advantage in the export of certain commodities, it may not necessary that ASEAN nations have a requirement for the same commodities. A comparison of the RCA of commodities in India with the RID of commodities in ASEAN countries will give a more reliable picture of the export potential of the Indian goods in ASEAN countries and vice versa. If for a certain commodity India has a RCA index greater than one, and the same commodity ASEAN countries have a RID greater than one, then such a commodity is considered to have a strong export potential in the particular country.

The prospect of trade between India and the ASEAN would essentially depend on the extent to which their production and demand structure are mutually supportive or complementary. The goods that are traded between them broadly indicate the level of realization of such complementarity. This, however, does not necessarily reflect the level of trade potential. For, historical factors as well as several other, rigidities might stand as impediments to fuller trade realization based on potentials. Yet a clearer understanding of trade potential would lead to conscious efforts to promote trade between them. Keeping this in view, this research paper attempts to identify the extent of trade intensity, reciprocity and potentialities between the India and ASEAN based on the extent to their existing trade pattern both at the global and bilateral levels. Data have been explored upto HS 6-digit level to deeply understand the possible trade areas, which subsequently could augment the trade between India and ASEAN.

In the aftermath of the economic crisis of 1991, the need for urgent economic reforms became imperative, to restore confidence in India and rebuild the economy. This was met by extensive reform measures, initiated by the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. While the economy started to reshape itself, further steps were taken, one of which came to be known as the "Look East Policy" or LEP. With this policy, India set on path towards greater economic interaction with Eastern and Southeast Asian countries.The relationship between the East and the Indian subcontinent is deep rooted and it can be traced back to many centuries. However, there is no doubt that these relationships have gained immense importance in the age of globalisation wherein countries and regions are not only intertwined and interdependent but also interconnected to such a large extent that they influence every aspect of the nation.A major event, which gave a t...

Indo- ASEAN jointly constitutes over 1.2 Billion consumers Base. ASEAN is India’s 4th largest Trading Partner with total Trade reached $71.7 Billion in 2016-17. The year 2017 commemorates 25 years of India-ASEAN Strategic Dialogue Partnership and is expected to be the largest Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This paper is an attempt to study and analyse Indo-ASEAN Trade patterns for the past half a decade (2012 to 2017) which have seen most happening period of regional economic partnership especially among Indo- ASEAN and china-ASEAN. The present study intends to analyse the tussle between India and member nations of ASEAN as despite High export potential and strong bilateral free trade agreement, India is continuously facing trade deficit with ASEAN which has reached $9.56 Billion in 2016-17 from just $0.5 Billion in 2005-06. The present paper may also put forth reasons and suggestions for Trade Deficit in order to strengthen the policy framework of Indo-ASEAN relation. Trade remains the sore point between India-ASEAN relations, as the already existing AIFTA (ASEAN INDIA Free Trade Agreements) has received serious criticism on its overall impact and Market access issue. Thus, more importantly this study is an attempt to understand the theoretical concept of RCEP and forecast possible impacts of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on IndiaASEAN Bilateral Trade. The current paper discuss RCEP as an important contributor to India’s Act East Policy which needs to be studied critically. The sources of Data are the government reports from ASEAN nations, Ministry of Commerce and Industry Statistics, GOI and few tables compiled by the authors and Research Articles, reports and data from the expert groups such as policy makers. The research methodology adopted in this paper primarily a descriptive study and both empirical and qualitative analysis used.