India-U.Okay. items commerce surged 60% in eight years; imports almost doubled

India’s complete merchandise commerce with the U.Okay. has grown steadily over time, touching $19.3 billion in 2024-25 as much as January 2025. Nonetheless, import development has outpaced that of exports by a major margin.

Notably, commerce in each instructions is extremely concentrated in only a few sectors, knowledge from the Ministry of Commerce and Business reveals.

An evaluation by The Hindu reveals that simply 5 product classes — electrical equipment (15.3%), nuclear reactors, boilers & equipment (11.6%), mineral fuels and oils (9.1%), pearls, valuable & semi-precious stones (7%), and pharma merchandise (5.4%) — collectively make up almost half of what India exports to the U.Okay. The biggest class on this, equipment and engineering items, is more likely to see robust development following implementation of the Free Commerce Settlement (FTA) with the U.Okay. introduced on Tuesday, in keeping with business members.

“With the FTA in place, engineering exports to the U.Okay. are projected to just about double over the subsequent 5 years, reaching round $7.55 billion by 2029-30,” stated Pankaj Chadha, chairman of the Engineering Exports Promotion Council of India. “The U.Okay. is at the moment India’s sixth largest engineering export vacation spot.” The import state of affairs is much more concentrated. The highest 5 product classes — pearls, valuable & semi-precious stones (30.5%), nuclear reactors, boilers & equipment (17.4%), electrical equipment (7.2%), iron and metal (5%), and aluminium and its articles (4.5%) — collectively make up 65% of India’s imports from the U.Okay. India’s complete commerce with the U.Okay. stood at $12.2 billion in 2016-17, the earliest 12 months for which the ministry offers knowledge. Of this, India’s exports stood at $8.5 billion and imports have been $3.7 billion.

This has grown considerably over time. Complete commerce, at $19.3 billion in 2024-25 as much as January 2025, is sort of 60% larger than its stage in 2016-17. Exports have grown 41% to $12 billion.

Nonetheless, over this era, imports grew almost 100% to $7.3 billion.