Amid border clashes, calls for boycotting Chinese products have intensified. While India relies heavily on imports from China, a much smaller portion of China’s imports are from India. An economic boycott seems infeasible. In FY19, 5.1% of India’s exports were destined for China, while only 3% of China’s came to India. Also, 13.7% of India’s imports were from China, while only 0.9% of China’s were from India. Imports from China accounted for over 14% of India’s total imports in FY20 (until Feb.), the highest share among all the nations. Exports to China accounted for over 5% of India’s exports, the third-highest.
Data from the CPCA show that China exported 2,957 cars to India in April. India came in as No.7 among China’s auto export destinations, despite the impact of the global pandemic and noise calling for a boycott of Chinese products in India. Industry data shows China exported $4.3 billion worth of parts to India’s $57 billion auto component industry in the 2018 financial year alone. There are many essential commodities that are imported from China and India will need to speed up its infrastructure growth manifold to produce them in their own country. For instance, 76.3% of all antibiotics imported by India are from China. Apart from this there are many Indian start-ups that have Chinese investors and therefore throwing away china completely from the Indian market seems like a far fetched possibility.
