India gained modestly from US-China trade war: SBI report

05 Aug '19

2 min read

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India has modestly gained from the US-China trade war by exporting more items to China, according to a recent State Bank of India (SBI) Ecowrap report, which said India's exports to China post the trade war have grown much faster. While overall exports to the US grew 9.46 per cent to $52.4 billion in 2018-19, for China the growth was 25.6 per cent to $16.7 billion.

"Looking at the products on which China and USA have imposed tariffs on each other, India has made modest gains in capturing such market," the report said.

US textile imports has shifted from China towards other countries in South Asia.

Though India has gained in the first five months of this year, Vietnam and Bangladesh have seen much larger increase in exports to the United States, according to the US Department of Commerce Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) data.

Cotton imports from the United States to China declined for the first half 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year, while imports from other countries, including Brazil, Australia and India have increased.

"Thus India has benefited from US-China trade war by exporting more to China like plastic, cotton, inorganic chemicals and fish," the SBI report said.

"Interestingly, India has a revealed comparative advantage in some of these commodities."

The report pointed out that to further boost exports, easy availability of credit is of ‘paramount importance’.

"Certain measures including extension of 'Interest Equalization Scheme' to all categories of exporters and end to end digitization of the export process among others should aid our export credit growth," the report added. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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