What is the UK’s trade deficit with India?published at 11:32 British Summer Time
11:32 BST
Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist
Image source, Getty Images
The UK and India have signed a major trade deal that will cut tariffs.
But what’s the current trading relationship between the two countries?
The UK imports a lot more from India than it exports back.
In 2024, this trade deficit was over £8bn.
That means that the value of goods and services imported to the UK from India, totalling about £25.5bn, was larger than the value of goods and service the UK exported to India – about £17.1bn.
Altogether, India is the UK’s 11th largest trading partner in the world, external.
To put that another way, for every £100 worth of trade the UK does with other countries, £2.40 of it is with India.
The biggest export from the UK to India, worth over £2bn last year, was non-ferrous metals. These are metals that don’t contain iron, such as aluminium or copper.
Scrap metal and metal ores were another big export along with power generators, drinks and tobacco and general industrial machinery.
The biggest imports were refined oil, clothes, telecoms and sound equipment, medicinal and pharmaceutical products and iron and steel.