India’s trade deficit with China has crossed $100 billion in 2022 despite frosty bilateral relations, according to data released by the Chinese customs on Friday.

The total India-China trade for 2022 has climbed to $135.98 billion, overtaking the $125 billion mark a year earlier by registering an 8.4 per cent increase, according to the annual Chinese customs data. China’s exports to India climbed to $118.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21.7 per cent. During 2022, China’s imports from India dwindled to $17.48 billion, a year-on-year decline of 37.9 per cent. The trade deficit for India stood at $101.02 billion, crossing the 2021 figure of $69.38 billion.

This is the first time the trade deficit, a serious concern constantly expressed by India, has crossed the $100-billion mark. In 2021, the overall trade with China totalled $125.62 billion, an increase of 43.32 per cent year on year crossing the $100 billion mark for the first time.

The trade between the two countries continued to boom despite border tensions following the military standoff in eastern Ladakh inMay 2020. According to an official brief on trade posted on the Indian Embassy website in Beijing, “the rapid expansion of India-China bilateral trade since the beginning of this century has propelled Chinato emerge as India’s largest goods trading partner by2008”.

“Since the beginning of the last decade, bilateral trade between the two countries recorded exponential growth. From 2015 to 2021, India-China bilateral trade grew 75.30 percent, an average yearly growth of 12.55 per cent,” it said.