A Collaborative Study of Foreign Trade and Economic Performance of India With Southeast Asian Countries

Introduction

India, a South Asian nation, is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous democratic country with over 1.38 billion people of the world. India boasts of an immensely rich cultural heritage including numerous languages, traditions, religions, customs and people. The country holds its uniqueness in its diversity, and hence has adapted itself to international changes with poise and comfort. While the economy has welcomed international companies to invest in it with open arms since liberalization in the 1947s, Indians have been prudent and pro-active in adopting global approach, knowledge, and skills in their day-to-day operations. Since the green agriculture revolution and the white milk production revolution in India, the Indian farmers have proudly taken up farming, fishing, advanced agriculture and unique handicrafts as their profession on one hand, while modern industries and professional services sectors are coming up in a big way. India has emerged as the fastest growing major economy in the world and is expected to be one of the top three economic powers in the world over the next 10-15 years, backed by its robust democracy and strong partnerships among with the developed and powerful countries of the world like U.S.A, Russia, Israel, and Saudi- Arab (Puri & Mishra, 2020).

The country is also attracting many global players for strategic investments owing to the presence of vast range of industries, companies, investment avenues and a supportive Government. Large youth population is a strong driver for demand for goods and services and an ample source of manpower for India. in India during the Colonial Rule

Though India has progressed far but still there are some problems associated with the development of Indian economy such as unemployment, poor educational standards, poor infrastructure, deterioration in the Balance of Payments, high levels of private debt, increased inequality, large budget and trade deficit and rigid labor laws.

Figure 1.

Aim of the chapter

The objective of this chapter is to draw inferences of Indian trade with some Southeast Asian countries – see figure-1. Following the introduction and literature review, methodology, data Analysis, discussion, recommendation, future research directions and conclusion section of the chapter is covered.

Literature Review

The Indian economy is characterized as a middle-income developing market economy in the entire world economy. It is the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) of the world. Apart from private consumption, India's GDP is also fueled by government spending, investment, and exports. Colonial rulers never made any significant changes for the benefit of the social sector of the country, and this hampered the productive capacity of the Indian economy. During independence, India’s literacy was only 17 percent, with a life expectancy of 32.5 years. Therefore, after independence, systematic organization of the economy was a real challenge for the government of that time. The need for delivering growth and development was the urgent need of the political leadership - as the country was riding on the promises and vibes of national fervor. Many important and strategic decisions were taken by 1956 by the Indian government, which are still shaping India’s economic journey. At a press conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley commented, “We keep oscillating between the fifth and the sixth largest economy, depending on the dollar rate. As we look at the years ahead, we will be $ 5 tn by 2024 and $ 10 tn by 2030 or 2031” (Sharma, 2019).