li
Trade relations:
Germany is world-wide India's fourth most important trading
partner and in 1993 it ranked first among the countries of the European
Union. The total volume of trade between the two countries in 1992
amounted to 5,274 billion DM. Although trade between the two countries
in the 1980s as well as at the beginning of the 1990s showed by and large
a positive rate of growth, India had a subordinate role as a trading partner
of Germany. In the 1980s, the share in the import transactions amounted
to 0.3% and in the export 0.5%. Another prominent feature of trade
between the two countries was that, in terms of value, Germany exported
to India much more than it imported from India. Especially from the
middle and the end of 1980s the trade gap has widened enormously.
Since the structure of trade and imbalance between export and
import proved problematic and also, from India's standpoint, there
seemed a good scope for expanding the trade volume, special export
promotion schemes were generated. “Indo-German Export Promotion
Project” (IGEP) initiated by the German government in March 1988 may
be cited as the highlight. Representatives of both Indian and German
ministeries concerned as well as those of certain organisations such as
GTZ(German Agency for Technical Cooperation) are interacting in this
project. The prime target is to promote export from India to Germany and
other countries of the European Union.23In this context it should be
interesting to note that in 1992, it came to a 20% increase in German
exports. Only a marginal increase of Indian exports to EU, on the other
hand, is mainly due to stagnating exports from India to Germany. By
contrast, especially Netherlands and Italy import a wide range of Indian
products.24
As regards future development, Verma spotlights two aspects:
“United Germany within the single EC-market will be a slightly
different proposition for India from what it is today and it will have
two important dimensions for Indo-German trade. First, United
Germany will be an economic and technological leader potent with
big opportunities in the field of technical collaborations for India in
industrial machineries, parts and components, auto parts and other
vehicles, electronics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, sponge iron,
refractories, television, communication network, electrical machin
ery and, more important in the new field of biotechnology, new and
renewable sources of energy and computer software industries. “But,
with reference to reunification and the opening-up of Eastern Euro
pean countries, he suggests some caution: “The establishment and
enlargement of German contacts with the East European nations and
