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Economic Cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia: Performance and Prospects

India and Saudi Arabia represent the two dominant member countries of their respective regional blocks. If India is the largest country of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Saudi Arabia is the leading country of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The economies of both these countries have been undergoing a process of liberalization and reforms. Being members of World Trade Organization (WTO), both countries are in the process of transforming their economies in the WTO framework. India is a country of vast opportunities having a population of over one billion. The size of its population and labour force are second in the world, next to China only. The steady and continuous reforms during the previous one and half decades has resulted in the Indian economy in achieving a high growth rate of 8.4 per cent during the fiscal year 2005–06. Which is again second to China only. Thus, with a large human resource base, a huge market and an expanding economy, India is becoming a country of unlimited economic opportunities. As far as Saudi Arabia is concerned, it has a population of only 22.7 million. Saudi nationals make up 16.5 million of the total whereas the remaining 6.1 million are non-Saudi expatriates. However, Saudi Arabia is a unique country which holds about a quarter of the global petroleum reserves. It also contains about 3 per cent of global reserves of gas. Saudi Arabia is the largest producer and exporter of petroleum in the world. The enormous petroleum reserves and vast petroleum production capacity gives Saudi Arabia significant power in the global oil market. The production and export of petroleum has provided Saudi Arabia with massive oil revenues which in turn has resulted in the unprecedented development and prosperity that the Saudis presently enjoy. Saudi Arabia applied for membership of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1993. And after 12 years of prolonged negotiations and implementation of sustained reforms of the Saudi economy, Saudi Arabia became the 149th member of the GATT’s successor World Trade Organization in December 2005. Economic cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia pre-dates the oil era. The advent of the oil era further strengthened the bilateral economic cooperation between the two countries. Saudi Arabia’s accession to the World Trade Organization is expected to increase significantly the economic cooperation between these two countries. India–Saudi Arabia economic cooperation consists of bilateral trade inclusive of the energy imports, Indian expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia, the inflow of remittances, Saudi aid and prospective Saudi investments. This article studies in detail India–Saudi Arabia trade, its export and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, 323 – 334, March 2008