After registering continuous annual growth for nearly a quarter century, the US-India trade decreased in 2015 from the previous year. The two countries traded in goods and services worth $66.271 billion in 2015, which is $581 million lower than the trade volume in 2014.
The US trade deficit with India also slightly declined in 2015 to $23.21 billion, compared to $23.63 billion in 2014, a reduction of $6.18 million.
According to trade data released last week by the United States Census Bureau, total US exports to India in 2015 was $21.529 billion and total imports from India stood at $44.741 billion.
It was the first time in nearly a quarter century the bilateral trade registered a decline. The last year it happened was in 1991, when the trade volume shrank by nearly half a billion dollar from the previous year.
It is to be noted that the reduction in trade was recorded at a time when both the countries are trying to take overall bilateral trade to $500 billion in next five years, which is around $100 billion at present.
In 2014, export and import figures stood at $21.60 billion and $45.24 billion, respectively. The trade defi-cit figures with India are showing a downward movement for the first time since the global financial crisis of 2008 that shattered the US economy. In 2009, the trade deficit with India shrank to $4.72 billion, from $8.02 billion in 2008.
Last year, US exports to India declined to $21.52 billion from $21.60 billion in 2014, and import declined from $44.74 billion from $45.24 billion in 2014.
Meanwhile, the overall goods and service deficit of the United States increased to $531.5 billion in 2015. According to the Census Bureau data, the overall goods and services deficit was $531.5 billion in 2015, up $23.2 billion from $508.3 billion in 2014. Exports were $2,230.3 billion in 2015, down $112.9 billion from 2014. Imports were $2,761.8 billion in 2015, down $89.7 billion from 2014.
Monthly figures for 2015 reveal that the highest trade deficit with India in 2015 was recorded in March with $2.30 billion, followed by May ($2.248 billion) and July ($2.244 billion).
June showed the lowest deficit with $ 1.44 billion fol-lowed by December ($1.47 billion) and February ($1.64).
According to the Embassy of India in Washington, DC, major US imports from India include textiles precious stones and metals, pharmaceuticals, fuel and oil, machinery and organic chemicals, while major American exports include precious stones and metals, aircraft and spacecraft parts, machinery, optical instruments and equipment, and plastic products.
India is the 11th largest trading partner of the United States, and trade with India comprised 1.7 percent of the country’s total foreign trade that raised five folds in the last decade.
President Mr. Barrack Obama had recently said that the country would look at export controls to ensure that Indian companies have the same access to American technologies.
“For our part, the United States continues to look at our export controls to make sure Indian companies have the same access to American technology as our closest allies,” Mr. Obama said.
Meanwhile, India is keen on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement signed by the United States with 11 other nations, that helps the small business owners and farmers in the US sell their products in these countries by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes and other trade barriers.
(Source – The American Bazaar, 07-February-2016)
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