A Study on Variation in Comparative Advantage in Trade between China and India

This paper investigates the comparative advantage of India & China and how this has changed over the period of 2002-2012. Comparative advantage has been tested using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). Export Products are analyzed based on Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) revision 1, which divide total export into ten groups. It has been found that in some commodities RCA remained stable throughout the study period whereas in some commodities there has been large variation. In some commodity groups India and China complement each other whereas in some commodities they are competing they are competing with each other in the World market. The analysis can be applied to guide policy makers in their evaluation of trade and industrial policies