StatsGuru: Economic significance of the PM's trip to Iran

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent trip to Iran was among the most important of his trips in the recent past. Iran is emerging from a strangling sanctions regime. That might allow its share of the world oil production, which has dipped calamitously according to Table 1, recover. But it is important to note that its economic recovery predated the ending of sanctions: As Table 2 shows, after years of contraction, GDP growth turned positive in the summer of 2014. And hyper-inflation was brought under control too, as Table 3 reveals.

Meanwhile its exports, which fell sharply when sanctions began to pinch - as shown in Table 4 - might be about to revive, which would allow imports to revive too. As Table 5 shows, India is the second-biggest destination for Iranian exports after China; it is also the second biggest provider of imports to Iran, according to Table 6, but here its share is much smaller, as compared to China which has about a quarter of both Iran's exports and its imports.

In fact, as Table 7 reveals, Indian exports to Iran have consistently underperformed its imports from Iran, and have in fact dipped recently even in the absence of Western competition. This will need to be addressed. While Indian imports from Iran are mainly petrochemical-related, as Table 8 shows, Indian exports to Iran - in Table 9 - are more varied, although rice tops the list.