An Overview of Trade Volume and Its Composition : Comparative Analysis of EU, ASEAN with India

India's foreign trade policy is mainly focused on increasing volume of bilateral trade with several economic cooperation arrangements with different countries. The bilateral trade agreements are considered as important strategies for development among the countries. They are instrumental in promoting economic growth and development of the economy, particularly, through FTA's (free trade agreements). Though the patterns of bilateral integration differ across regions, reducing barriers to trade between member countries remains the primary objective. Many go beyond removing intra-regional tariffs on trade in goods to removing non-tariff barriers, and even include investment. Thus the trade volume and its composition has played an increasingly important role in India's economic growth in the last two decades wherein a lot of bilateral trade agreements have been formed; India-ASEAN agreement and the on-going negotiations between India and EU representatives during the last few years have given rise to substantial curiosity among researchers across the world. The kind of trade agreements India has with the two trading blocs are significant to explain the direction and composition of India's trade volume. India trades more with ASEAN countries rather than with countries in the EU. The research analyses the performance of India's exports, imports and its trade volume with EU and ASEAN for the period between 1996 to 2014. The paper also looks at trade patterns in respect of selected industries where the trade volume has been significantly going up