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US, India's largest trading partner: Report

United States continues to remain India's largest trading partner and plays a dominant role in India's trade during 2000-2001, The US accounted for 22.70 per cent of India's exports and 7.69 per cent of India's imports.

This was stated by the Annual Report of Department of Commerce (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) for the year 2001-2002, released in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The European Union is India's largest trading bloc partner, accounting for about 22 per cent of India's global trade. India's exports to West Asia and North Africa also showed an appreciable increase of 22.93 per cent during 2000-2001.

Ttrade with the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries has registered an overall growth of over 37.4 per cent during the year 2000-2001, out of which exports recorded an increase of 43.8 per cent while imports grew by 15.39 per cent.

Referring to the activity-based integrated programme for the Latin American region (Focus: LAC), launched in November 1997 and extended upto March 2003, the report says that the progress under this programme is reflected in an impressive growth of 50.47 per cent in India's exports to this region.

India's exports to the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)countries witnessed a marginal growth, while a number of steps were taken to boost the level of trade with the erstwhile rupee payment area countries, which had shown a significant decline following the disintegration of COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation) countries.

The annual report further says that the Export promotion continued to form a vital ingredient of trade policy during 2001-2002 and important policy changes were effected for creating an export-friendly environment, doing away with restrictive procedures, moving away from quantitative restrictions and improving competitiveness while meeting global standards and requirements.

A Medium Term Export Strategy 2002-07 was announced on January 30, 2002 to provide a road map for the export sector in the medium term. A total of 220 items and 25 markets have been identified for special attention based on different criteria and for the identified potential export items, indicative of sector-wise strategies that have been formulated.

It says that the Exim Policy 2001-2002 announced on March 31, 2001 had a number of policy initiatives to boost exports.

Which included setting-up of Agricultural Export-Zones, Special Economic Zones, where duty-free import and procurement of goods for factories in the zone would be permitted.

The formulation of a plan Market Access Initiative to assist the industry in research and development, market research, specific market and product studies, warehousing and retail marketing infrastructure in select countries and direct market promotion activities through media advertising and buyer-seller meets, is also an important tenant of Exim-policy the Report says.

The report indicates that India's export performance during 2001-2002 was affected by global recession and the events of September 11, 2001.

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