Beijing, Delhi trade grew in 5 months

Trade grew by 55.83% in the first 5 months of the year, according to Indian data

BEIJING/NEW DELHI: Trade between India and China soared by around 70%year-on-year to at least $48 billion in the first five months of 2021, latest data from Chinese customs showed Monday.

Publicly available data from India too showed a healthy growth, although the numbers differed from those put out by Chinese state media. According to the Indian data, trade grew 55.83% in the first five months of the year.

The reason for the discrepancy in the data isn’t known; both countries denominate the trade in dollars. Calling it a “spectacular growth”, Chinese state media interpreted the increase in bilateral trade as a sign of resilience in trade ties between the two countries despite serious conflict at the border and political differences.

“Trade between China and India soared 70.1 % in US dollar terms in the first five months of this year to $48.16 billion, according to Chinese customs data released on Monday. Specifically, Chinese exports to India grew 64.1% year-on-year from January to May, while imports surged 90.2%,” the nationalistic tabloid, Global Times reported.

According to the Indian data, imports from China rose 59.13% to $33.49 billion, while exports to

China rose 46.09% to $10.41 billion.

The trade volume between the two countries was higher than the trade China conducted with other trading partners in this period, the Global Times report said. The latest statistics were released by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Monday.

As per Chinese data, the trade – or specifically Chinese exports to India – rose sharply between April and May. The rise could be attributed to the increase of exports of Chinese medical goods and equipment by Indian companies to fight the surge in Covid-19 cases in the last couple of months. “If anything, these extraordinary growth rates show that China-india trade has largely shrugged off the impact of the political tensions caused by the border friction last year...,” the state media report said.

India-china trade in 2020 declined by 9.1% to $77.66 billion, though China still overtook the US to become India’s largest trading partner in 2020.

Those numbers are for the calendar year. India, follows an April to March financial year and according to government data, Indian exports to China saw a 27.53% jump in 2020-21 , while China’s imports saw a 0.07% contraction. Total India-china trade in the financial year was $86.4 billion, with a $44 billion trade balance in favour of China, a significant 30.15% drop from about $63 billion in 2017-18. According to the Indian embassy in Beijing, though bilateral trade between the two countries grew exponentially overall – notwithstanding a fall last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic -- India continues to be saddled with a big trade deficit.