China India Photo:CFP

The trade volume between China and India reached $91.2 billion in the first eight months of 2022, an increase of 16 percent year-on-year, the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs of China on Wednesday showed.

China's exports to India maintained a high growth rate of 33.9 percent in August, albeit 3.1 percentage points lower than the growth rate in July. China's single monthly export volume to India hit $9.95 billion in August, while imports from India stood at $1.49 billion for the month. 

India has now become the world's fifth largest economy surpassing the UK. However, a report from The Indian Express cited data from Indian ministry of commerce and industry that the country's export growth slowed down to 2.1 percent in July, contracting by 1.2 percent in August to a nine-month low of $33 billion due to declining global demands. 

Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Wednesday that economic structures of China and India have strong complementarity.

"For instance, 80 percent of raw material of the pharmaceutical industry, one of Indian pillar industries, was imported from China," Qian said, adding that the cumulative trade volume will definitely cross the $100 billion milestone for the second consecutive year in 2022.

Global Times