China Research

A discussion forum on emerging markets, mainly China – from a macro, micro, institutional and corporate angle.

India and the EU agree on Free Trade

January 28, 2026

After 18 years of negotiations, India and the EU finally managed to conclude a deal on an important Free Trade Agreement (FTA), probably accelerated by President Trump’s irrational tariffs which had hit both India and the EU. More than 20 percent of global GDP is covered by this FTA and almost two billion people live in this gigantic area. India has the largest population in the world with very good growth rates in recent years. Since the EU so far failed to implement its trade deal with Mercosur, the FTA with India has also significant psychological importance for the future of the EU.

Declining tariffs or down to zero in the forthcoming decade

Obviously, European industry will benefit a lot from the gradually declining or disappearing tariffs, for as much as 96 percent of all European industrial products during the forthcoming decade. Good new business opportunities will mainly show up for European cars, aircrafts, machinery, etc. Indian exports will particularly be favored in industries like IT services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, textiles, and jewels.

More recently, bilateral trade between the EU and India counted for about 180 billion euro. Agriculture is not included in the FTA which should make the still necessary European political approvement easier than it had been the case in the Mercosur process. Furthermore, another major advantage of the FTA is the strengthening of supply chains and the reduction of geopolitical vulnerability, indeed for both sides.

Model simulations show that the FTA could increase Indian exports to the EU by 41 percent and EU exports to India by 65 percent. This would lead to substantial income gains for both countries, according to the Kiel Institute (https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/trade-agreement-eu-india-could-increase-bilateral-trade-by-up-to-65-percent/, https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/82e3902e-610e-46e7-9176-83e37af0d5ab-KPB202.pdf ).

However, India is not a country where business deals easily and quickly can be accomplished. The Indian business culture is very different from the European. This should be sincerely considered by European business people.

Below, I put together some articles on India that I have written in recent years :

“India – the next global superpower” – https://blogg.lnu.se/china-research/?p=3671 (2025)

“India – Modi wants to win the election and act as the voice of the South” – https://blogg.lnu.se/china-research/?p=3524 (2024)

“ India isn’t easy to analyze and deal with” – https://blogg.lnu.se/china-research/?p=3501 (2024)

“My impressions from (studying) India”- https://blogg.lnu.se/china-research/?p=3421 (2023)

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University

Advanced countries lose and emerging markets gain export momentum

October 29, 2025

Below, we examine the WTO statistics on the main exporting nations. Many advanced countries had quite bleak performances in 2024 due to weak global demand. Quite a number of emerging markets on the other hand achieved more favorable developments. The magnitude of trade damage caused by President Trump’s protectionism starting in 2025 remains to be seen.

China was still the largest exporting nation in the world after a 6-percent increase in current prices last year, giving the Middle Kingdom a global export share of almost 15 percent. This was partly made possible as a result of further Chinese progress in the emerging world, particularly in Africa and South America. China counts for roughly 7 percent of total global goods exports. For 2025, China is predicted to achieve record shipments in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

India remains lagging behind, Vietnam is catching up

Despite the enormous size of the country, India still has not advanced further than to number 18 of the globe’s leading exporting nations. This is sometimes regarded as disappointing. However, one should remember that India for a long time only had very limited foreign competition at home and for this reason insufficient conditions for exporting to the rest of the world on a broader scale of products. India as a country is still catching up also when it comes to exports and product diversification.

By the way, only a few emerging markets are among the top 20 exporting nations – but they dominate in the third group from number 21 to 30. Particularly in the medium and longer run, they will most probably improve their positions further.

In detail, the list of the 30 leading exporters of goods in 2024 looked as follows (in billion USD, in brackets all changes in percent and in current prices in, source WTO):

1    China 3577 (+6)   

2    U.S. 2065 (+2)

3    Germany 1682 (-1)

4    Netherlands 921 (-2)

5    Japan 707 (-1)

6    South Korea 684 (+8)

7    Italy 674 (0) 

8.   Hong Kong 64z6 (+12)

9     France 639 (+11)

10   Mexico 617 (+4)

11   UAE 604 (+6)

12   Canada 569 (0)

13    Belgium 536 (-6)

14    UK 513 (-2)

15    Singapore 506 (+6)

16    Taiwan 474 (+10)

17    Switzerland 447 (+6)

18    India 443 (+3)

19    Russia 433 (+2)

20    Spain 424 (0)

21    Vietnam 405 (+14)

22    Poland 380 (0)

23    Australia 341 (-8)

24    Brazil 337 (-1)

26    Malaysia 330 (+6)

26    Saudi Arabia 305 (-5)

27    Thailand 301 (+5)

2    Indonesia 265 (+2) 

29   Czech Republik 263 (+3)

30   Turkey 262 (+2)

Source: WTO.org

Asia in the lead regarding suppliers from emerging countries

Interestingly, Asian emerging countries had the most successful export performance in 2024 (but again, without knowing how much they are now affected by Trump’s ongoing protectionism). This position can be expected to remain in place in the foreseeable future. It also should be mentioned that particularly Vietnam benefited more recently from shifting global supply chains.

Surprisingly, Russia remained also in 2024 quite a successful exporting nation due to oil and gas exports to China, India and other countries still dealing substantially with Russia.

Conclusion: Trade statistics from the WTO remain illuminating, especially on the corporate level – for both purchasing, sales and production managers.

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University

SCO – another example of Chinese long-term strategy

September 3, 2025

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) belongs to the international conventions that are hardly known in our part of the world. Though having been founded already in 2001, not very much has been reported from the 24 Heads of State Council meetings before the 25th SCO convention that took place recently in Tinjian.  The SCO Tianjin Summit 2025 has probably been the most important of its kind so far, due to the list of prominent participants and the burning international conflicts.

Long-term aspects more important than short-term results

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), is an intergovernmental organization that has been started in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan aiming at peace and cooperation among its member states with the intention to promote what then was called a new fair political and economic order. Later on, also India, Pakistan and Iran joined the organization.

Totally, the SCO also includes quite a number of observer states from the Eurasian region. Around half of the global population is represented in the SCO which considers itself as an alternative to corresponding Western organizations .

According to the SCO, its main goals are defined as follows:

#  “to strengthen mutual trust, friendship and good-neighborliness between the Member States;

#  to encourage the effective cooperation between the Member States in such spheres as politics, trade, economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, etc;

#  to jointly ensure and maintain peace, security and stability in the region; and

# to promote a new democratic, fair and rational international political and economic international order”.

When reading these points above, one can easily observe their general and unbinding character – whatever this may mean. But now more co-operation among the member countries seems to be strived. This would allow China – the strongest member of the SCO – to pave the way for the continued development of the SCO (see https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/618965), certainly in line with its international long-term strategy. A parallel long-term strategy of this kind is also visible in other parts of the globe, for example in Africa, South America and the Pacific area. Russia’s role in the SCO seems to remain limited compared to China’s dominant position. India’s future impact on the SCO still appears unclear but closer relations to China seem to be on the cards. Trump’s tariffs could favor such a development even more than so far.    

Conclusion: China’s interest in the future of the SCO underlines again its long-term ambitions in the world – for reasons of political influence, new markets for its exports and the future supply with important commodities. By looking somewhat deeper into the SCO, we have got another example of China’s unique capacity to apply both short-term and long-term perspectives at the same time. A phenomenon that uses to come back regularly and that often is neglected in Western countries and companies..

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University