Brussels, 30/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The trade in goods and services between the EU and India was worth €102 billion in 2015 and for the third year in a row the EU recorded a small trade deficit of €1.3 billion, according to the latest figures of the European statistical office Eurostat, which were announced ahead of the EU-India summit in Brussels, on Wednesday 30 March.
The bilateral trade in goods was worth €77.5 billion in 2015. €38.1 billion of this was exports for the EU and €39.4 billion exports for India, or a deficit of -€1.3 billion for the EU.
For Europe, the highest surpluses were registered by Belgium (+ €3.688 billion) and Germany (+ €3.425 billion), a long way ahead of Sweden (+ €528 million), whilst the highest deficits were recorded by the United Kingdom (-€2.611 billion) ahead of the Netherlands (-€1.687 billion), Spain (-€1.624 billion) and France (-€0.841 billion).
Over 10 years, trade has doubled: from €40.4 billion in 2005, it rose to €80.5 billion in 2011 before dropping to €72.5 billion in 2014, then climbing back to €77.5 billion last year.
With a 13% share in Indian trade in 2015, the EU was India's largest trading partner, ahead of China (9.6%) and the United States (8.5%). For its part, India was the EU's ninth-largest trading partner, behind South Korea but ahead of Brazil.
Manufactured products greatly predominate in the exports of goods of both partners. For instance, 89% of the EU's exports to India were manufactured products (of which €14.5 billion in machinery and vehicles, €5.0 billion in chemical products and €14.4 billion in other manufactured products) and 7% primary products (including €2.0 billion in raw materials, €0.4 billion in food products and drinks and €0.3 billion in energy products).
83% of India's exports to the EU were manufactured products (€6.5 billion in machinery and vehicles, €6.4 billion in chemical products and €19.7 billion in other manufactured products) and 16% were primary products (including €3.0 billion in food products and drinks, €2.1 billion in energy products and €1.2 billion in raw materials).
The bilateral trade in services was worth €24.4 billion in 2014, of which €12.3 billion were exports for the EU, or a surplus for the EU of €0.3 billion.
The EU is also the largest foreign investor in India, with flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to India of €5.2 billion in 2014 and stocks of FDI in the country of €38.5 billion by the end of 2014. India's flows of FDI to the EU stood at €1.1 billion in 2014 and its stocks of FDI in the EU were worth €6.9 billion at the end of 2014.
The 13th EU-India bilateral summit in Brussels on Wednesday 30 March, which was taking place as we were going to press, is expected to breathe new political life into the laborious EU-India free-trade negotiations, launched in 2007 and shelved in the spring of 2013. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)