The Indian foreign trade was primarily restricted until the onset of economic reforms and liberalization of foreign trade policy in 1991. Since liberalization India's international trade has been showing an upward trend with opening of its trade doors to the rest of the world. Indian export sector during April 2008 marked the growth of 18.11% with total exports increased to US $ 162.9 billion while the Indian Import shoot up with an increase of 34.30% during the same period.

Top Ten Commodities :

These are the major categories of goods that alone contributes to about 78.8% of the total imports made by India. The top ten commodities are: Petroleum crude and Products Gold & Silver Electronic Goods Machinery other than Electrical Organic & Inorganic Chemicals Precious & Semi-Precious Stones Iron & Steel Metalliferous Ores & Products Coal Transport Equipment

Import of Principal Commodities:

India's import of Principal Commodities are basically divided into the following five major categories: Bulk Imports: The main items under the Bulk Imports category with percent of share during April-September 2007 are: Fertilizers (36.22%), Iron & Steel (36%), Edible Oil (18.31%), Non Ferrous Metals (11.51%), Petroleum Products (4.09%) and Metalliferous Products (1.55%). Precious & Semi-Precious Stones: The Pearls, Precious and Semi-Precious Stones commodity accounts for 4.22% share in India's total import and during the considered period this category goods showed an increase of 16.24%. Machinery: Under this category import of Transportation Equipment, Machine Tools, Machinery and products in Electrical and other than Electrical group marked an increase of 34.57%, 23.49%, 14.52% and 13.25% respectively in the period of April-September 2007. Project Goods: This category has 0.52% share in the overall imports of India and during the said period it marked the decrease of 38.99% with the value of Rs.2392.57 crore. Others: In this item head following commodities shown an increase- Gold & Silver (52.25%), Electronic Goods (12.32%), Professional Instruments (10.77%) and Organic & Inorganic Chemicals (8.06%).

Indian Economy has shown a remarkable upward trend over the past decade with an average annual GDP of around 6%. The well structured economic reforms after 1991 alongwith the liberalization of trade policies and tax reforms put the Economy of India on the path to become become the world's rapidly growing economies. As per World Trade Organization (WTO) as of 2006 India share in the world trade stands at 1.2% and since liberalization the value of India's international trade has been moderate. The economic reforms led to open doors of India's International trade with the various countries of the world and currently China, US, UAE, UK, Japan and the European Union are the major trade partners of India.

Import from Top Ten Countries :

Among the list of India's Top Ten Importing trade partners comes : China (11.2%) Saudi Arab (7.2%) USA (5.8%) Switzerland (5.6%) United Arab Emirates (5.5%) Iran (4.2%) Australia (4.0%) Federal Republic of Germany (3.8%) Nigeria (3.3%) Singapore (3.1%)

India's Region Wise Import Direction :

The import in India is mainly directed from the five regions namely: Asia & Asean (61.13%) Europe (21.20%) America (9.05%) Africa (6.68%) CIS & Baltics (1.58%)

Changing Trends in Trade with Importing Countries:

During the period of April?September 2007 India's major trading partners have marked upward trend in their share as: Europe (23.65%) Asia & Asean (11.80%) America (11.56%) Africa (8.22%) CIS & Baltics (1.11%)