India's Trade Openness

Abstract

The dramatic trade policy shifts of early 1990s have brought in considerable changes in India's foreign trade scenario. The paper is an attempt to analyse India's policy shifts and to examine changes in trade performances following the major reforms in 1991. It tries to have a picture of India's trade status and trade growth in 1990s as compared to the pre-openness period, and also relative to some selected developing economies. The analyses revealed that India became more open in 1990s, and its volume off oreign trade registered considerable growth in the post-openness period. However, India has been maintaining higher trade barriers compared to almost all economies of the comparison group, and its share in the global trade remained negligible. The empirical analyses also show that there has been positive and strong association between India's foreign trade and economic growth over the period under study, however, there is no indication that openness has been contributing in improving the productivity of domestic capital in India.