India's engg exports to China rise 123%

PTI
New Delhi

The country's shipments to China stood at $282 million in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal. The rise assumes significance as India has a massive trade deficit with China, which mounted to $46.56 billion last year as Indian exports continued to decline while the bilateral trade marginally slowed down by 2.1 %to nearly $71 billion, data released earlier showed.
Shipments in the first quarter of 2017-18 rose by 10.57 per cent to $72.21 billion while imports surged 32.78 per cent to $112.2 billion, leaving a trade deficit of $40 billion.
Shipments of engineering goods from India to China aggregated $234 million in June, against $94 million in the same month last year. The sharp rise was on the back of a mammoth 971 per cent increase in the shipments of non-ferrous metals in June this year to $158 million from a mere $14.75 million in the same month last year, the analysis revealed.
T S Bhasin, chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) of India, hopes that bilateral trade continues to flourish between the two neighbours. For the April-June period, non-ferrous metals exports to China saw an increase of 344 per cent from $80 million last year to $355 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
"China is certainly a key trading partner for India. The two economies are among the fastest growing in the world and can complement each other. A pick up in the Chinese economy is also contributing to the rising consumption of the key metals," the EEPC India Chairman said.
China and South Korea were the leading importers of non-ferrous metals from India during April-June with 17 per cent and 14.6 per cent share respectively, Bhasin said.