Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With imports outpacing exports, despite recent recovery, India’s trade deficit with China is expected to swell to USD 106 billion in 2025, the media reported on Friday.
According to a think-tank, Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), India’s exports to China fell from USD 23 billion in 2021 to USD 15.2 billion in 2022, stayed low at USD 14.5 billion in 2023, and then edged up to USD 15.1 billion in 2024.
In 2025, Indian exports to China are estimated to improve to USD 17.5 billion, still well below earlier levels, the GTRI said in its report.
On the other hand, China’s exports to India climbed much faster — from USD 87.7 billion in 2021 to USD 102.6 billion in 2022, USD 91.8 billion in 2023 and USD 109.6 billion in 2024.
This calendar year, the country’s inbound shipments are estimated at USD 123.5 billion.
“This has pushed India’s trade deficit (difference between imports and exports) with China from USD 64.7 billion in 2021 to USD 94.5 billion in 2024, and an expected USD 106 billion in 2025,” GTRI Founder Ajay Srivastava said.
On December 16, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada said that the deficit is mainly due to imports of raw materials, intermediate goods and capital goods, like auto components, electronic parts and assemblies, mobile phone parts, machinery and its parts, and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), used for making finished products, are also among imports.
“An Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has been constituted to consider the trends with respect to imports and exports and recommend corrective action wherever required,” he said.
According to the GTRI, nearly 80 percent of India’s imports from China are concentrated in just four product groups – electronics, machinery, organic chemicals and plastics.
During the January–October 2025 period, India’s imports from China were dominated by electronics, which totaled USD 38 billion. This included imports of mobile phone components (USD 8.6 billion), integrated circuits (USD 6.2 billion), laptops (USD 4.5 billion), solar cells and modules (USD 3 billion), flat-panel displays (USD 2.6 billion), lithium-ion batteries (USD 2.3 billion) and memory chips (USD 1.8 billion).
Machinery imports followed at USD 25.9 billion, with transformers alone accounting for USD 2.1 billion, highlighting India’s dependence on Chinese capital goods for power and industrial projects, Srivastava said, adding organic chemicals reached USD 11.5 billion, driven by antibiotics imports of USD 1.7 billion, underscoring China’s dominance in pharmaceutical intermediates.
Plastics imports during the period stood at USD 6.3 billion, including USD 871 million of PVC resin, while steel and steel products amounted to USD 4.6 billion and medical and scientific equipment added USD 2.5 billion.
“Together, these figures show that India’s import bill from China is anchored in electronics, machinery, chemicals and materials that are difficult to substitute quickly, explaining the persistence of a large bilateral trade deficit despite efforts to diversify supply chains,” he added.
In November 2025, India’s exports to China rose by 90 percent to USD 2.2 billion. During the April-November period, exports were up 33 percent to USD 12.2 billion.
Increasing exports of Naphtha, used in the plastic industry, is the biggest contributor to push the growth rate in November. Electronics goods, including printed circuit boards and mobile phone components also recorded healthy growth during the month.
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