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when there was a slight dip in India’s overall trade with the outside world.
Indeed, 2014 was the highpoint of the two-way trade, and subsequently
the trade started to decline partly due to the global recession and low oil
price and hovered around the 2008–09 figures of US$25 billion.
A healthy trade since 2006, accompanied by a massive import of petro-
leum and high oil prices, contributed to a shift in their relative impor-
tance; Saudi Arabia has emerged as India’s fourth largest trading partner
during the last decade while India became the fifth largest export destina-
tion for the Kingdom. As shown in Fig. 9.2, it has been maintaining the
fourth position among India’s trade partners since 2006, except for 2010
when it fallen by one place. Though the Saudi share in India’s overall trade
has dropped from the high of 6 per cent in 2013–14 to 3.8 per cent in
2016–17 (Fig. 9.3), primarily due to low oil price, in the broader Middle
East the Kingdom is second only to the UAE in trade terms.
As shown in Table 9.1, the bilateral trade increased ten folds between
1996–97 and 2016–17. Indeed, the figure reached US$48 billion in
2013–14 before sliding, primarily due to falling oil prices. Nevertheless, as
0.0010,000.0020,000.0030,000.0040,000.0050,000.0060,000.001991-921992-931993-941994-951995-961996-971997-981998-99
1999-20002000-012001-022002-032003-042004-052005-062006-072007-082008-092009-102010-112011-122012-132013-142014-152015-162016-17US$ MillionExport Import Total TradeFig. 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia Bilateral Trade. (Source: Directorate General of
Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India and
World Bank (https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/IND))
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR