A STUDY ON TRENDS IN INDIA'S MERCHANDISE TRADE WITH SAARC NATIONS

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and geopolitical
cooperation among eight member nations that are primarily located in South Asia continent. Its
secretariat is headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal. The SAARC policies aim to promote welfare economics,
collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia, and to accelerate socio-cultural development in
the region. The SAARC has developed a role in external relations around the world. The study entitled ‘a
study on trends in India’s merchandise trade with SAARC nations’ highlights India’s merchandise trade
relationship with SAARC at large and with each members of the trade bloc in particular. The study has
objectives like to find out trends in India’s Export and import in general and particular, to find out growth
rate in export and import, to know India’s trade balance with SAARC nations, to know share of export and
import in SAARC, etc. The study period was 2001-02 to 2013-14 (April-March). Study primarily depend
upon secondary data in which data obtained from ministry of commerce and industry, government of India,
RBI publications, World Bank Development report, ADB working papers and report, etc. Data compiled,
analysed and interpreted for the purpose and is found out that India has a prominent role in outh Asia and
India’s biggest trade partners are Bangladesh and srilanka. It also concluded that India has alwayspositive trade balance with SAARC nations growth rate in export and import is increasing even it is slow.
In India’s world trade, SAARC constitute around 5% in export and around 0.5% in import. The study has
neither separately analysed the trends in trade after the introduction of SAPTA/SAFTA nor it focused on a
single or particular country, rather it is a general study based on secondary data.