Subject: Trade

India has embraced trade diplomacy, signing Free Trade Agreements with the UAE, Australia, Oman, the United Kingdom, the European Union and New Zealand, with more under negotiation. The record with Asian partners undercuts the assumption that these agreements automatically boost exports and integrate India into regional production networks. Trade with partners such as ASEAN has become import-driven, with deficits widening even as export shares erode.

What is a Free Trade Agreement and Global Value Chain integration?

1. Free Trade Agreement (FTA): An FTA is a pact between two or more countries that reduces or removes tariffs and other barriers on goods and services traded between them. It is meant to expand market access on both sides.
2. Global Value Chain (GVC) integration: A Global Value Chain is a production network where different stages of making a product occur in different countries. Integration means a country supplies or assembles components within these cross-border networks rather than trading only finished goods.

How has India’s trade balance shifted under Asian FTAs?

1. Widening deficit with ASEAN: India’s trade deficit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) rose sharply from USD 10.4 billion in 2012 to USD 51.2 billion in 2025, driven by rapidly rising imports.
2. Faster imports with Japan and South Korea: Imports grew much faster than exports with Japan and South Korea over the same period, deepening the imbalance.
3. Surplus turned to deficit with Singapore: India’s trade surplus with Singapore turned into a deficit after the trade agreement, signalling weakening export competitiveness.
4. Import-driven pattern: Trade with key FTA partners has become increasingly import-driven rather than export-led.

Why have export shares eroded despite tariff preferences?

1. Declining share in partners’ import baskets: India’s share of ASEAN’s import basket dropped from 3.42% to 1.71% between 2012 and 2025, and its share of Singapore’s imports fell from 2.27% to 1.71%.
2. Losses in Korea and mixed Japan trend: India’s share in South Korea’s import basket declined from 1.33% to 1.02%, while its share in Japan’s imports showed mixed trends.
3. Tariff cuts cannot offset weak capability: The inability to use tariff preferences shows that market access based on tariff elimination alone cannot compensate for weak domestic industrial capabilities, logistical inefficiencies and infrastructure constraints.

Why does the case that FTAs drive GVC integration break down?

1. GVC trade share has fallen: India’s GVC-related trade as a share of gross trade declined from 37.13% to 34.38%, showing weakening integration rather than deepening.
2. Decline across most partners: GVC trade as a share of gross trade fell with South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, rising only with Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.
3. Access is not participation: FTAs may raise market access in some product categories, but their ability to build productive capabilities remains contested.

What must change beyond signing more FTAs?

1. Fix domestic capacity first: India’s trade challenge is not negotiating more FTAs but strengthening domestic productive capabilities and removing associated impediments.
2. Link trade to industrial policy: FTA strategy should connect to an industrial-policy framework emphasising technological upgrading, strategic investment, supply-chain realignment and domestic value addition.
3. Avoid asymmetric outcomes: Without industrial transformation, FTAs increase import penetration faster than export competitiveness, widening asymmetrical trade outcomes and structural vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

The core problem is that India’s FTAs have become instruments of import penetration rather than drivers of export growth or GVC integration, because tariff access cannot substitute for weak industrial capacity. The strategy must move beyond market access toward domestic industrial transformation, technological upgrading and value addition. Until domestic productive capabilities strengthen, additional agreements will deepen deficits rather than reverse them.

Back2Basics

1. Free Trade Agreement: A treaty that reduces or eliminates tariffs and trade barriers between member countries.
2. ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional grouping of ten Southeast Asian countries; India signed an FTA in goods with ASEAN in 2009.
3. Global Value Chain: A cross-border network in which successive stages of production are spread across multiple countries.
4. Types of trade pacts: Preferential Trade Agreement, Free Trade Agreement, Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, differing by depth of liberalisation.
5. Trade deficit: The amount by which a country’s imports exceed its exports.

PYQ Relevance

[UPSC 2018] Consider the following countries: 1. Australia 2. Canada 3. China 4. India 5. Japan 6. USA

Which of the above are among the ‘free-trade partners’ of ASEAN?

(a) 1, 2, 4 and 5 (b) 3, 4, 5 and 6 (c) 1, 3, 4 and 5 (d) 2, 3, 4 and 6

Answer: (c)