Are we growing?? Point to think about Indian Trade

Last week, i attended a seminar of Leadership organized by IIM L students, PRODIGIES, Leadership Summit 2008.

There I came across some of the astonishing facts about of Indian Trade and Economy which i would like to share:

The following table lists down the % of World Trade which India contributed.

Early 19th Century : 20 %
Early 20th Century: 6 %
1947 : 2%
1990-91 : 0.6%
2006 : 1.4-1.6%

(This was brought to us by Mr J.J.Irani, Director, Tata Steels who was one of our speakers in the summit)

This data just made me think:
1. Are these data correct? (Especially related to the Early 19th Century & early 20th Century). The time when some of the continents were not even explored. The trade was within the continents. Also, not even inter-continent. (except for a few locations)
2. Does this data consider the trade within the country's local markets or it simply considers the global (inter-country) trade? If it consider(s) the local Market trading, were we aware of the other amount of trade being done in other countries in other continents and sub-continents?
3. If it counts only for the Global Trade, then the point is that at that period of time, the trade across the countries was very less due to unexplored countries and continents. And the trade in India was mainly due to the Spices and the Uranium rich sand on the east coast of the Indian Subcontinent. (Most of the people don't know about the second reason mentioned)

Along with this, i read something: "Assessment of India's pre-colonial economy is mostly qualitative, owing to the lack of quantitative information. One estimate puts the revenue of Akbar's Mughal Empire in 1600 at £17.5 million, in contrast with the total revenue of Great Britain in 1800, which totalled £16 million. India, by the time of the arrival of the British, was a largely traditional agrarian economy with a dominant subsistence sector dependent on primitive technology. It existed alongside a competitively developed network of commerce, manufacturing and credit. After the fall of the Mughals, India was administered by Maratha Empire. The maratha empire's budget in 1740s, at its peak, was Rs. 100 million"
(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India#Pre-colonial)

Well, i am not here to question the above data. I am writing this to give a thought on the current figures considering that all the data mentioned above is correct.

The current data says that we are trading only the 1.5% of the total world trade but we say that we have reached a big milestone in terms of our trades. And we target to reach 2% by 2009-10. On the other hand, current ratio of US in global trade is 20%. Don't you think that we are much behind the world in terms of trade? Yes we all agree that we are much behind in terms of trade and we are growing and trying to meet those targets.
Also, we still are importing more than what we export, that too by 10-12%

The other most important point to think is the composition of our trade. What elements compose of our trade and in what %. (Will be giving the details of this later on).

Well, hopes to new EXIM policies that we will quickly reach our targets and gain our age-old importance and share in the world trade.

(Currently reading "A veiw From the Outside: by P.Chidambaram". Will come back with some views on his finance theory :-) )