At the time of writing, the 13th ministerial meet of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is under way in Abu Dhabi. Among the many issues that are being discussed are two of concern for less developed countries generally and India…
Imagine a country that is exposed to relatively unrestricted trade. There are two obvious problems that it can face because of this trade policy: the first is a balance of payments problem because its exports are insufficient relative to its…
The wisdom of pursuing a strategy of export-led growth has been discussed among development economists for at least half a century, ever since the so-called East Asian “miracle” started to be contrasted with the comparatively sluggish growth experience of countries…
Liberal bourgeois writers tend to explain the problems that arise under capitalism not by the immanent tendencies of the system but by the capriciousness of particular governments. This way they can continue to believe in their own false theories that…
At first look, the evidence is worrying. Goods exports from India in June dropped to an 8-month low of $33 billion having fallen sharply by 22 per cent year-on-year. Moreover, that decline was not a one-off event. The June fall…
The global distribution of surpluses and deficits in the balance of payments, or the excesses or shortfall in foreign exchange earnings vis-à-vis expenditures, has for multiple reasons been in constant flux. This has implications for the directions in which capital…
The Government of India’s Economic Survey 2022-23 is a bizarre document. It uses cherry-picked time series data to suggest that the performance of the Indian economy has been commendable only during the current Modi government’s tenure and the previous NDA…
India’s current account deficit for the second quarter (July-September) of 2022-23 has reached a massive $36.4 billion which is 4.4 per cent of the gross domestic product, higher than at any time in the last nine years. It is only…
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war sparked rapid and dramatic increases in some global trade prices, particularly for fuel products, wheat and fertilizer for which Russia and Ukraine are major exporters. It is now clear that these…
It was headline news when Chinese customs statistics at the end of September 2022 indicated that for a second calendar year, India’s trade with China would settle at well above $100 billion. That was only partly because of the positive…
