Petroleum products dominate trade between India, France, shows data

France's share in India's total FDI remains modest

The trade ties between India and France are at their deepest they have been in recent memory. The total value of imports and exports are higher than they have been for any period since at least 1990-91, the earliest year for which data was available from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to France will serve to bolster various such areas of major bilateral cooperation. The surge in recent years has been led by higher exports than imports. India’s exports to France totaled $7.6 billion in 2022-23. This is 14 per cent higher than it was in the previous year. The imports from France remained stagnant at $5.8 billion. The export figure is the highest seen in records going back 32 years (chart 1).

A closer look at the components of exports shows that petroleum products dominate (chart 2). Data shows FDI worth $1.9 billion in 2019-20 and $1.3 billion in 2020-21. The average has been a few hundred million. The number for 2022-23 was $378 million. France accounted for 0.8 per cent of overall FDI flows into India in 2022-23 (chart 3).