Among the 10 major South-East Asian countries, India’s exports to China recorded a phenomenal growth of roughly 96 per cent during the first 11 months of 2002-03 over the same period of the preceding year. China and India also posted a 22 per cent and 15 per cent growth in their exports to these countries during 2002 over 2001, which was ‘unparalleled’ in the region and in the world, reveals a report prepared by the commerce ministry’s economic division.The report titled ‘Export performance of some South-East Asian countries via-a-vis India’ also reveals that barring Malaysia and Hong Kong, India’s exports to all other countries in the region had shown a sharp increase during April-January 2003 over April-January 2002. During this period, India’s exports to Indonesia and Singapore grew by 54.02 per cent and 59.19 per cent, respectively. After attaining an all-time high growth of 21 per cent in 2000-2001, India’s exports declined by 1.7 per cent in the following year mainly due to the terror strikes on the US on September 11, 2001. The growth rate, however, registered a sharp 18.1 per cent growth in 2002-2003 which was next only to China. The report says China’s exports registered a 35 per cent growth during March 2003 over the same month in 2002, while exports by Japan and Korea increased by 11.21 per cent 16.32 per cent during the same period. The report further says that India’s exports to South-East Asian region increased to 22.13 per cent during April-January 03 over the figure of 20.03 per cent recorded during April-January 2002.China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia imported more from India than their total import offtake during 2002 over 2001. Further, there was an increase in India’s share in imports of these countries during the same period. Japan and Malaysia reported a decline in their imports from India. China’s imports from India at 33.79 per cent was higher than its total imports at 21.24 per cent during 02, the report points out. India’s share in China’s imports rose from 0.7 per cent in 2001 to 0.77 per cent in 2002.By far, Japan was one country where there was a fall in India’s share in its imports consistently as well as a decline in imports in 2002 over 2001.
