According to provisional data available for the first quarter April-June of the current financial year 2006-07,India's merchandise exports during June 2006 have shown an unprecedented growth of 40.17%, having increased to US $ 9967.08 million ($ 9.9 billion) from the level of US $ 7110.96 million ($ 7.1 billion) during June 2005.

Cumulative exports during April-June 2006 recorded a growth of 17.0 per cent (35.4 per cent a year ago).

The Ministry of Commerce has set a target to export goods worth USD 120 billion during 2006-07, which translates into a 20 percent growth compared to the year ago export level.

The export growth was broad based with transport equipments, petroleum products, machinery and instruments, manufactures of metals, ready made garments, particularly cotton, drugs, dyes and agricultural products being the main contributors to growth.

Destination wise, exports to OPEC countries registered a strong growth. The US, the UK, Germany, Italy, UAE, China and Singapore remained as the major export markets during April 2006

Total imports during April-June 2006 are valued at US $ 40281.28 million, which is 24.48% higher than the level of US $ 32360.13 million during April-June 2005.

Imports of petroleum oil and lubricants (POL) during April-June 2006 rose by 47.2 per cent (31.0 per cent a year ago) due to sharp increase in crude oil prices. The Indian basket crude oil price registered a year-on year increase of 35.5 percent

The growth in non-oil imports decelerated to 6.6 per cent during April-June 2006 from 51.7 per cent a year ago.

Source-wise, imports from developing countries increased at a relatively higher rate than those from the developed countries. China was the largest source of India's imports followed by Switzerland, the US and Germany.

The trade deficit for April-June 2006 is estimated at US $ -12609.35 million, which is higher than the deficit of US $ -11459.82 million during April-June 2005.

According to the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister, India seeks to enhance the value of trade with Japan to about US$ 10 billion by fiscal 2009, the target amounts to twice the current level of value of trade with Japan, world's second largest economy.

Overall automobile Exports registered 28.13 percent growth rate in April-August 2006 over the same period last year. Passenger Vehicles Exports grew at 14 percent. Two Wheelers Exports grew by 28.80 percent and Commercial Vehicles by 28.36 percent.

According to data compiled by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), software and services exports, including IT enabled services (ITeS), are estimated to have reached US$ 6.3 billion in the quarter ended June 2006, an increase of 32.29 per cent compared with the exports in the same period last year.

Indian textile exports grew by 17.9 per cent in the first two months of this fiscal to touch US$ 2.8 billion as compared to the corresponding period in the previous fiscal.

India has emerged as the biggest exporter of handmade carpets in the world beating traditional powerhouse Iran and China. The country has grabbed 35.5 per cent of the US$ 2.6 billion export market, according to the latest data available with the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC).

Within the primary products group, exports of agricultural commodities maintained the momentum of high growth led by the surge in exports of raw cotton, spices, oil meals, sugar, and molasses and fruits and vegetables.

Within manufactured products, exports of engineering goods, readymade garments and gems and Jewellery maintained the momentum of high growth during April 2006. Within engineering products, export of transport equipments more than doubled with a sharp pick up in demand from the markets like Singapore, the US, Iran, UAE, and Germany.

Owing to increased demand from the Americans, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) expects a 25 per cent increase in exports to the US at US$ 5.88 billion during this financial year compared with US$ 4.7 billion in the previous financial year.

Exports of chemicals and related products as well as cotton yarn showed a moderation in growth of exports.

Petroleum products continued its high growth during April 2006 due to the strong buying support from the major markets of UAE, Singapore, UK, and Sri Lanka.

The exports of chemicals, particularly the pharmaceutical products have increased sharply and contributed significantly to the overall exports in recent times, reflecting the cost advantage of Indian pharmaceutical companies and growing demand from the world market.

In July 2006, Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and Mr. Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, Minister of Trade, Industry and Power of Royal Government of Bhutan signed a new Agreement between India and Bhutan on 'Trade, Commerce and Transit' in place of the existing agreement on 'Trade and Commerce' which was signed on 28th February 1995. The Protocol to the new Agreement provides for four more exit / entry points in India for the imports into and exports from Bhutan in place of the twelve-exit/entry points in the Protocol to the current Agreement. The import/export procedure prescribed in the protocol to the current agreement has also been simplified. The new protocol also provides for movement of goods from one part of Bhutan to another through the Indian territory by giving a transit declaration in the prescribed form, and in case such consignment consists of third country origin there has to be an undertaking by the Government of Bhutan that the same is meant for consumption in Bhutan. The new Agreement, along with its Protocol, would be valid for a period of ten years.

The first round of negotiations for the proposed India-Mauritius Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement was held on 8th August, 2005 at New Delhi in which it was agreed to set up three Working Groups on (i) Trade in Goods; (ii) Trade in Services; and (iii) Investment & Economic Cooperation. So far, five rounds of negotiations between the two countries have taken place. The last round was held in New Delhi on 23-24 February 2006. According to the Minister of State for Industry, Dr. Ashwani Kumar efforts would be made to channelise more and more foreign investment from Mauritius into India's infrastructure sector. India also plans to work closely with Mauritius for economic cooperation in tourism, education, health services, fisheries and small & medium enterprise development.

India and France have agreed to make concerted efforts to further expand bilateral trade and investment. Both sides have agreed to facilitate the movement of businesspersons, professionals, student, interns and tourists as this would help in the expansion of business linkages between India and France. France has indicated that its future legislation on immigration present under examination by the French Parliament will open new avenues for foreign qualified professionals and students to access the French market on a temporary basis. The French authorities are also ready to solve the problems faced by Indian companies on a case-by-case basis. This is indicated in the joint statement of the 14th Session of the French-Indian Joint Committee, which was signed in Paris by Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, on behalf of the Government of India and Ms. Christine Lagarde, the French Minister of Foreign Trade on behalf of the Government of France. Both sides reviewed market access issues faced by their exporters, with the Indian side urging agreement between the French Agricultural Ministry and the Indian Export Inspection Council (EIC) in order to facilitate export of Indian agricultural food and fisheries products to France.

The US-India Trade Policy Forum is an institutional arrangement between the two governments to discuss trade and investment issues. Trade Policy Forum was launched during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to the US in July 2005. The inaugural session of the Forum was held in November 2005 in New Delhi, the second session of the Forum was in February 2006 in Washington, DC and the third meeting was held in March 2006 in New Delhi. The fourth meeting of the US-India Trade Policy Forum was held in May 2006. In this meeting, India and US agreed on an action plan to increase their bilateral economic engagement. The agenda included discussion on tariff and non-tariff barriers; agriculture; investment; services and intellectual property rights and the discussions on all these issue areas took place in a spirit of cooperation and mutual understanding.

India and Poland strive to raise the level of bilateral trade from 560 million US dollars currently to at least one billion dollars within the next few years. Further, Poland has assured to liberalise its visa regime for Indian businesses as a step towards strengthening trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. An Agreement on Economic Cooperation between India and Poland has been signed by the Indian Commerce and industry Minister, Shri Kamal Nath and by Mr. Piotr Gregorzwozniak, Minister of Economy, on behalf of the Government of Poland, according to which both sides have agreed to expand and develop bilateral economic relations in all areas of sectors of the economies, based on mutual benefit. In particular, cooperation is envisaged in the areas of mining, oil & gas, energy, geology, industry, information & communication, transport, marine affairs, housing & tourism and agro & food processing.

In keeping with the target of raising the two-way trade to one billion US dollars by 2006, India and Myanmar have agreed to expand and diversify the bilateral trade. This was indicated in the Agreed Minutes of the Second Meeting of the India-Myanmar Joint Trade Committee (JTC), which was co-chaired by Shri Kamal Nath, Indian Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Brig. Gen. Tin Naing Thein, Commerce Minister of Myanmar. Although there have been significant increase in bilateral trade to over US $ 500 million in 2004-05, this is still short of the target set by the two sides at the first meeting of the JTC held at Yangan in 2003. Both countries have emphasised the natural complementarities of the two economies and have noted that after Myanmar's entry into the ASEAN and BIMST-EC, new avenues have been opened for greater cooperation on a bilateral and regional/multilateral basis.

Bilateral trade between India and Japan is on the rise and this is evident by the increase in the number of joint declarations, delegation visits and other business events between the two countries. Japan is among India's top five trading partners. Total trade between India and Japan was close to US$ 5 billion during 2004-2005. Japan has emerged as the fourth-largest FDI contributor to India for the period from 1991 to 2004. Consistently, Japanese companies such as Suzuki, Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi Chemicals have invested in India, reiterating their faith in the 'fastest growing free market democracy'. Japan contributes around 8 percent to India's total technical collaboration with foreign partners, another proof point of the growing partnership. Indian companies too, are exploring Japan as an investment opportunity. Around 70 Indian IT companies have already established their offices in Japan. Emphasizing the growing importance of the Indo-Japanese bilateral relations.

India and Singapore signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in June 2005, which aims at strengthening economic and trade ties between the two countries.

As part of the "Look East "policy, India signed a FTA with Thailand in July 2004. The tariff concessions on 82 items of early Harvest Scheme (EHS) list began from 1.9.200 and the tariffs on these items became zero for both sides since 1.9.2006.