In order to appreciate the importance of the international trade to economic development, it is pertinent to note the observation of Joseph Stiglitz in his book titled “Globalisation and it’s discontents”. He notes that opening up international trade has helped several countries to grow more quickly than they would have otherwise done. In this context, it would also be opportune to note the remarks made by Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the WTO in August 2007. He mentioned that ‘trade opening and vanishing of many walls have the potential for expanding freedom, empowerment, democracy, innovation, social and cultural exchanges’.

The recent developments in India, with the government seeking to open trade routes to the west, the change in the Indian attitude towards it’s trade partners has captured a lot of attention. In this context, it would be opportune to trace the Indian developments to 1947, when India gained independence, in the period following this the country sought to embrace protectionism with high import barriers. However, this narrative shifted to unveil a novel picture in 1991, under Manmohan Singh, the then Minister of Finance that opened the doors to a new liberal economy. Presently, the merchandise exports are valued at 451 billion US Dollars which is a significant increase from 314 billion US Dollars that had been calculated over a decade ago.

Between the years 2005 and 2015, India entered into a number of bilateral and other regional agreements trade agreements. The objective behind this was to further the Indian integration into a number of global value chains, increasing the access to foreign capital and technology. This had also helped broaden the exports of services and to construct new strategic geopolitical partnerships. In the period between 2015-2025 India had entered into a new age of it’s trade diplomacy that would focus on deeper, multi-faceted agreements that worked beyond the traditional concepts of reducing the tariffs. These agreements had been constituted with the objective of increasing India’s competitiveness in the world by connecting it to emerging clusters in services, technology and high value manufacturing.