Climate Change, Trade, and Competitiveness: Climate Trade Performance of India, SAARC and Asia Pacific Region

This paper examines trade performance of climate friendly goods using some trade indices for India and other Asian countries during 2002 - 2008. Climate friendly goods (CFG) are those goods which have less harmful to environment. Paper identifies India’s performance in CFG trade with other Asian nations. Most of the countries in Asia are importers of climate friendly goods and technologies. The Comparative advantage analyses indicate that Hong Kong, China, and Japan have comparative advantage in the production of CFG goods and are net exporters of such products. The competitiveness measures also show that China, Hong Kong and Japan, and Asia Pacific region are major exporter of CFG during 2002-2008. Competitiveness of India, China and South Korea has improved in 2008. Pakistan, Sri-Lanka, and India prefer to trade in CFG regionally and have shown interest in production and trade of clean coal technologies (CCT). SAARC countries have developed expertise in the production of CCT. India and Pakistan enjoy comparative advantage in CCT trade. Few regions have comparative advantage in Solar Photovoltaic Systems (SPVS) and Energy Efficient Lighting (EEL). China is performing better than other in EEL. Japan, China, Malaysia and Macao show good in 2008 for SPVS. Japan, Philippines, China, Hong Kong and South Korea have a comparative advantage in production of other climate friendly items in 2008.