A Webinar on ‘India and China: The Evolution and Status of Economic Interdependence’ was presented by Dr Biswajit Dhar, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi over CISCO Webex Meetings on Friday, the 14th of August, 2020, at 3.30 pm. Mr KM Chandrasekhar, Chairman, Governing Body, CDS was the moderator of the webinar.
The webinar focused on mapping out India’s economic dependence on China which has come up for some discussion in view of the ongoing political tensions between the two countries. A detailed analysis of the bilateral trade data showed that India has a growing trade deficit with China, which has over the years become an important trading partner of the country. Very recently the trade deficit has shown some tendency to decline. India relies on China for certain high technology commodities such as Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) and telecommunications products in general and mobile phones in particular. China, on the other hand, relies on India only for certain raw materials. The webinar also analysed the reasons for India’s dependence on China and attributed that to two reasons. The first was India’s fast-tracked trade liberalisation that saw average import duties on industrial products decline to below 9% in 2008 from 33% in 2000. The second development was the decision by successive governments to desist from taking any significant measure to prepare India’s manufacturing sector to face the challenges of an open economy. This means that reducing the dependence on China calls for active intervention by the state.
For a published version of this webinar, please see: Dhar, Biswajit and Chalapati Rao (2020), ‘India’s Economic Dependence on China’, The India Forum, August 7, https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/india-s-dependence-china