Indian trade prospects

CG Freke, Director of Commercial Intelligence, recently delivered an interesting address at the Rotary Club, Calcutta, reviewing the general trend of Indian trade during the last 50 years. He remarked that exports from India were always in excess of imports. Owing to increased facilities in communication and a fairly steady exchange, India’s total trade had almost doubled between 1900 and 1914, but the war seriously checked this development. One effect of the war had been to raise the price of manufactured goods and India’s imports, therefore, had gradually decreased. Freke pointed out that taking the average figures for 1923, it would be observed that among imports, the index price of sugar stood at 246, which was 146 per cent higher than before the war. The general level of agricultural produce stood very much lower. And as India’s exports consist largely of agricultural produce, it is obvious that the cultivator was paying about 170 per cent more than before the war for his goods, while he was receiving only about 30 to 40 per cent more than before for his agricultural produce. The natural consequence was a fall in imports. Improvement could, he said, only be looked for in a fall in the prices of imported goods. Since 1921, there has been a considerable increase in Indian exports and the world’s demand for Indian supplies continued up to 1924, with the result that the rupee has appreciated to one shilling and six pence and India is importing bullion instead of manufactured goods. In the course of the discussion that followed the address, it was pointed out that the situation in India favoured the development of manufacturing.