Trends and Patterns of India’s Trade with Six EU Countries

Abstract

India and European Union trade relations go back to 1960s. Both sides started their bilateral trade relations after their first summit which, was held in 2000 and after that India-EU has gone through various rounds of summits and negotiations for improving the bilateral trade ties. As a result, Free Trade Agreement was agreed upon between them in 2007 but it is still not fully implemented. EU is India’s largest trading partner which has accounted 14.8 percent in its total trade in 2011. The study has taken up six nations of EU namely Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and UK as   India has a large average share of trade with these countries during 1996-2011. The study strives to find out the trade trends of India with these six EU countries namely Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and UK. The study  is an attempt to find out the trade competitiveness and patterns of India with these countries by using various indices like Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA), Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage Index (RSCA) and Intra Industry Trade Index (IIT).  The study finds out that  European debt crisis have vigorously affected Indian pattern of trade with these six countries.