Growth and pattern of India-Asean Trade

This paper studies India's trade prospect with ASEAN countries by analysing the pattern and trends in India's merchandise trade with ASEAN countries. In 2017, India and ASEAN had celebrated twenty five years of dialogue, fifteen years of summit level meetings and five years of strategic partnership. India's relationship with ASEAN has improved to the extent that the regional grouping is now the anchor of India's Act East policy. Today, India has thirty sectoral dialogue mechanisms and seven ministerial level interactions with ASEAN. India also shares strong bilateral relations with each of the ten ASEAN member nations. In the year 2016–17, ASEAN accounted for around 10.4 percent of India's exports and 10.6 percent of India's imports, which is a considerable chunk. This study is an attempt to analyse the India-ASEAN trade pattern. The study is based on secondary data taken from UNCTAD Trade Statistics and UN Comtrade Database for the period 1991 to 2016. The data has analysed with some statistical tools i.e. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), Year to Year Growth and Index Growth etc. It is examined that during the study period India-ASEAN trade has increased, especially after the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) came into effect from 1 January, 2010.