India and BIMSTEC : A Comparative Study of the Trade Potential of India's Energy Sector Products in BIMSTEC and BIMSTEC 1 Region

The primary objectives of this study are to identify major tradable energy sector products of India and cluster them as per their trade potential and identify the scope of trade and welfare creation should the regional trade agreement (RTA) is established among BIMSTEC member countries. In this study, the scope of energy sector has been kept confined to products and equipment directly associated with energy access. Energy security has been kept outside the purview of this present study. We have used 6-digit Harmonized System (HS-codes) of classification for both renewable and non-renewable energy. Alist of 270 products and major equipment, associated with the production and distribution of renewable and non-renewable energy sector, have been identified for preliminary analysis of India's trade potential of energy sector products in the region.Various clusters of products and equipment associated with energy sector have been formed. The clusters have been made on the basis of seven different parameters which are commonly used for analyzing trade data. For each product, values for these seven parameters have been estimated using historical trade data (2009-13). Primarily, WITS data has been used. And to understand intra-industry trade (IIT), the Grubel-Lloyd index has been used. FK index has been calculated to understand the potential of trade creation and threat of trade diversion of the trading partners. SMART package has been used to estimate welfare gains for BIMSTEC as well as BIMSTEC 1 member countries