According to the most recent Chinese customs data, trade between India and China increased by roughly 70% year on year to at least $48 billion in the first five months of 2021.
India’s publicly available data also showed healthy growth, though the figures differed from those released by Chinese state media. According to Indian statistics, trade increased by 55.83 percent in the first five months of the year.
The reason for the data discrepancy is unknown; both countries denominate their trade in dollars. Chinese state media interpreted the increase in bilateral trade as a sign of resilience in trade ties between the two countries, despite serious border conflict 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.
Imports from China increased by 59.13 percent to $33.49 billion, while exports to China increased by 46.09 percent to $10.41 billion, according to Indian data.
According to the Global Times report, trade volume between the two countries was higher than China’s trade volume with other trading partners during this period. China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) released the most recent statistics on Monday.
According to the Indian embassy in Beijing, despite the fact that bilateral trade between the two countries grew exponentially overall – despite a drop last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic – India continues to run a large trade deficit.
“The growth of trade deficit with China can be attributed to two factors: narrow basket of commodities, mostly primary, that we export to China and market access impediments for most of our agricultural products and the sectors where we are competitive in, such as pharmaceuticals, IT/IteS, etc. Our pre-dominant exports have consisted of cotton, copper and diamonds/ natural gems,” the Indian embassy says on its website under the section “India-China Trade and Economic Relations”.
