India's Trade with Neighbours Rises, But Sees Dip with Pak, Delhi Desires Normal Ties with Islamabad: MEA

India’s bilateral trade with neighbouring countries has significantly increased, reaching all-time high in some cases, while the trade with Pakistan has seen a significant dip, the government data showed.

Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, told the Parliament that the bilateral trade of India has increased from $27.9 billion in 2017-18 to $41.6 billion in 2021-22.

However, the trade with Pakistan reduced from $2.41 billion in 2017-18 to $0.52 billion in 2021-22, a government statement showed.

“India’s Neighbourhood First policy continues to guide its approach towards the management of relations with countries in its immediate neighbourhood, that is, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,” the government statement said.

“The Neighbourhood First policy, inter alia, is aimed at enhancing physical, digital and people to people connectivity across the region, as well as augmenting trade and commerce,” it added.

Nepal and Bangladesh saw a significant rise in bilateral trade over the years, while the trade with Pakistan and Afghanistan decreased over the years.

The bilateral trade with Bangladesh increased from $9.3 billion in 2017-18 to 18.13 in 2021-22, while for Nepal it increased from $7.05 billion in 2017-18 to 11.02 in 2021-22.

For Pakistan, the bilateral trade fell from $2.41 billion in 2017-18 to 0.52 in 2021-22 and for Afghanistan, it fell from $1.14 billion in 2017-18 to 1.07 in 2021-22.

‘India desires normal relations with Pakistan’

The Ministry of External Affairs said India desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan and added that any issues between the two countries should be resolved bilaterally and peacefully.

The statement, made by V Murleedharan in Lok Sabha, was made in response to a question on whether Pakistan has shown any sign of rapprochement with India.

“India desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan. India’s consistent position is that issues, if any, between India and Pakistan should be resolved bilaterally and peacefully, in an atmosphere free of terror and violence,” Murleedharan said.

“The onus is on Pakistan to create such a conducive environment by taking credible and verifiable actions to not allow any territory under its control to be used for cross-border terrorism against India,” he added.

(With Inputs from Shailendra Wangu)

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