NEW DELHI — According to information provided to Parliament on Wednesday, the bilateral trade between India and Pakistan increased to USD 1.35 billion from April to December 2022 from USD 516.36 million in the entire 2021–2022 year.
After New Delhi revoked Jammu & Kashmir’s special status, Pakistan suspended bilateral trade with India in 2019. According to the figures, trade with Pakistan was USD 830.58 million in 2019–20 and USD 329.26 million in 2020–21, PTI reported.
Anupriya Patel, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, released information in a written reply to the Lok Sabha that indicated that the country’s trade with China was aggregated at about USD 87 billion during the nine-month period of this fiscal.
“The government continues to engage pro-actively with SAARC countries to strengthen trade and economic relations. Issues impacting bilateral trade raised by these countries are taken up for an early resolution,” she said.
Replying to a separate question on foreign trade data, she according to PTI said that the data are released in three stages — press release (15th day of the following month); provisional data for 168 principal commodities (25th day of the following month) and the final data on the 45th day of the following month.
She said that the efforts at ensuring data availability with minimal discrepancies is a continuous process, adding that the Department of Commerce has taken note of media reports on data discrepancies.