India and the European Union Trade Relation

Subject: Economy

Context:

India and the European Union (EU) signed an agreement on cooperation in areas such as climate modeling and quantum technologies.

Concept:

Intent of Cooperation On High-Performance Computing (HPC), Weather Extremes and Climate Modelling and Quantum Technologies:

It was signed by India’s ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) The agreement commits for increasing technological cooperation on quantum and high-performance computing.
It aims to facilitate collaboration on high-performance computing applications using Indian and European supercomputers in areas such as biomolecular medicines, covid-19 therapeutics, mitigating climate change, predicting natural disasters and quantum computing.
India and the EU will leverage expertise from both sides to optimise high-performance computing towards developing advanced technology solutions.

EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC):

It was decided to set up in April 2022.
It aims to strengthen cooperation between the two strategic partners
It will be the second trade and technology council by the European Union (EU) after its first with the United States and first in India to be set up by any trading partner..
The India-EU TTC is a strategic mechanism that will give India access to advanced technologies and allows the two sides to set standards in crucial areas such as 5G and artificial intelligence.

India-EU trade relations:

The EU is India’s third largest trading partner, accounting for €88 billion worth of trade in goods in 2021 or 10.8% of total Indian trade, after the USA (11.6%) and China (11.4%).
The EU is the second-largest destination for Indian exports (14.9% of the total) after the USA (18.1%), while China only ranks fourth (5.8%).
India is the EU’s 10th largest trading partner, accounting for 2.1% of EU total trade in goods in 2021, well behind China (16.2%), the USA (14.7%) or the UK (10%).
Trade in goods between the EU and India increased by about 30% in the last decade.
The EU’s share in foreign investment stock in India reached €87.3 billion in 2020, up from €63.7 billion in 2017, making the EU a leading foreign investor in India.
Since the 1970s, India has been a beneficiary of preferential tariffs for its exports under the EU’s Generalised system of preferences (GSP).