Meeting the Challenges of the European Union: Prospects of Indian Exports

Exports will play a critical role in the success of India's new market-driven economic policies, ushered in progressively since 1991. The European Union (EU) constitutes a major export market for Indian manufacturers. Even though the EU has yet to achieve the economic integration of its member nations, it has succeeded in bringing about integration in the external sector. This has presented many challenges and fresh opportunities for the EU's trading partners from developing countries and calls for changes in the trading environment and in trading behavior. It is in this context that Meeting the Challenges of the European Union studies India's trading relations with the EU. Divided into three parts, the book first outlines the changing policy environment in both India and the EU, while also discussing recent changes in the international environment, particularly the impact of the Uruguay Round on GATT. In Part II, Authors Atul Sarma, Gerrit Faber, and Pradeep Kumar Mehta rigorously analyze India's export performance and trade statistics vis-a-vis the EU in terms of growth, composition, market share, and other relevant indicators. They identify the commodities that currently dominate India's exports to the EU while drawing attention to those items whose export potential is yet to be realized. Applying a number of analytical tools, the authors also reflect upon India's competitive strength in the EU market compared to its competitors from other non-EU countries. The final part of the book contains the responses of both Indian exporters and European importers of Indian goods to the various policy changes occurring in India and the EU. Based on their data and analysis, the authors suggest in the last chapter a number of policy initiatives-general as well as sector specific-to enhance India's penetration into the EU market.
Providing a rigorous, critical, and integrated analysis of Indo-EU trade behavior, this book will be of considerable interest to policymakers and exporters, and to scholars of international trade, economics, and business studies.