Economic cooperation and trade potential of Indian energy sector products between India and BCM region

Abstract

South & East Asia has become a critical and important part of the world trading system since last couple of decades. It has also emerged as the world’s fastest-growing economy. As a geographically connected region, the BCIM Economic Corridor (EC) is expected to ease the flow of goods between two of the largest and oldest economies of the globe namely India and China. It will also provide greater economic resources to the burgeoning markets of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The primary objectives of the study are to identify major tradable products of the energy sector of India and cluster them as per their trade potential. In this study, the scope of energy sector has been kept confined to products and equipment directly associated with energy access. Energy security has been kept outside the purview of this present study. Using 6-digit Harmonized System (HS-codes) of classification for both renewable and non-renewable energy, a list of 270 products and major equipment, associated with renewable and non-renewable energy sector, have been identified for preliminary analysis of India’s trade potential of energy sector products in the BCIM region. Various clusters of products and equipment associated with energy sector have been formed. The clusters have been made on the basis of seven different parameters which are commonly used for analyzing trade date. For each product, values for these seven parameters have been estimated using past trade data (2009-13). Primarily, WITS data has been used. And to understand intra-industry trade (IIT), the Grubel-Lloyd index has been used.FK index has been used to understand the trade creation and trade diversion potential of the trading partners. SMART package has been used to estimate welfare gains for BCIM member countries. Keywords: RCA, IIT, TCI, BCIM, SMART, GLI, RTA, FKI, RCDA, SSI.