Basic Introduction of India’s Foreign Trade (in Hindi)

Lesson 1 of 13 • 86 upvotes • 10:03mins

Vikas Kumar Singh Tomar

Prior to 1947, India’s trade was a typical colonial trade, in which she used to supply raw materials to the colonial master and imported the manufactured goods. So, naturally the industrialization at home was not permitted. The indigenous handicrafts suffered because of the competition from the British manufactured products as well as British traders located in India as well as abroad. The colonial pattern of trade was to be changed after independence. The first major challenge was the increase in the production capacity of the country. So, this led to import of the heavy plants and machinery which was called the “developmental Imports”. To maintain the productive capacity of the country, the objects such as machines were imported and this was called “maintenance imports”. The above two similar kinds of imports were vital for a developing country like ours which just embarked on the path of the economic development. Apart from that , India needed to import a lots of Food grains in the beginning of the independent era. Since, the food grain production in the country was so less to fulfil needs. The import of food grains was also necessary to contain the inflation in these consumer goods. This objective of writing the above paragraph is to say that India when became independent was heavily dependent upon the imports. The higher imports and negligible exports means a pressure on the balance of trade. The result is pressure on the economy. So, there was need to encourage the exports. The imports were inelastic, and to fight with the pressure of the foreign debt, the country needed to boost its exports.