Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
India raises concerns over growing trade deficit with S. Korea
NEW DELHI: India raised “serious concerns” over growing trade deficit with South Korea at a bilateral meeting this week in Seoul, and the two partners agreed to address tariff and non-tariff barriers during the two-day negotiations, a commerce ministry statement said on Friday.
India is renegotiating to upgrade the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the Republic of Korea (ROK), which was operationalised on January 1, 2010. The upgrade is necessary as the agreement in the current form was ill negotiated by the erstwhile UPA government and left several aspects that could have favoured India, one official aware of the development said requesting anonymity.
India’s mercantile exports to South Korea jumped 21.8% on annualised basis at around $6.1 billion in the first nine months of current calendar year, but imports also surged to $15.67 billion, registering over 28.4% growth in the same period. That left huge trade deficit of $9.57 billion in favour of Seoul, he said citing official data.
“India raised serious concerns on the growing trade deficit between the two countries and discussed market access issues,” the commerce ministry said.
According to a ministry of external affairs (MEA) note of January 2020, trade and economic relations gathered momentum following the implementation of CEPA in 2010. “Bilateral trade in 2018 was $21.494 billion and $20.7 billion in 2019. In 2018, exports from India accounted $5.884 billion, registering a growth of 18.8% and exports from ROK accounted for $15.610 billion registering a growth of 3.6%. In 2019, exports from India accounted for $5.6 billion and exports from ROK accounted for $15.1 billion,” it said.
According to official data, even during the covid period the mercantile trade deficit was very high. India exported goods worth $4.49 billion in 2020 to ROK, compared to $12.15 billion imports. In 2021, India’s goods exports to ROK was $7.09 billion compared to imports worth $17.08 billion from the country.