UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q131: Which one of the following is correct percentage about

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q131?

B. Correct — B, 11 percent of India’s global trade. India's total merchandise trade in 2023-24 came to roughly USD 1.1 trillion — about USD 437 billion of exports and about USD 677 billion of imports. India's merchandise trade with the ASEAN bloc that year was of the order of USD 120 billion. Roughly USD 120 billion inside roughly USD 1.1 trillion works out near one-ninth of the total, which is **11 percent of India’s global trade** — the figure the official key marks. That share is computed on merchandise trade. On a goods-plus-services basis India's total is larger, and the share ASEAN accounts for comes out smaller. Carry away the ratio rather than the raw number: **ASEAN is worth close to one rupee in every nine of India's foreign trade**, a large partner but not a dominant one.

UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 131 of 149

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2025 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

Which one of the following is correct percentage about ASEAN accounting for India’s global trade in 2023-24?

(a)16 percent of India’s global trade
(b)11 percent of India’s global trade
(c)25 percent of India’s global trade
(d)21 percent of India’s global trade

Answer

Why

Correct — B, 11 percent of India’s global trade.

India's total merchandise trade in 2023-24 came to roughly USD 1.1 trillion — about USD 437 billion of exports and about USD 677 billion of imports. India's merchandise trade with the ASEAN bloc that year was of the order of USD 120 billion.

Roughly USD 120 billion inside roughly USD 1.1 trillion works out near one-ninth of the total, which is 11 percent of India’s global trade — the figure the official key marks.

That share is computed on merchandise trade. On a goods-plus-services basis India's total is larger, and the share ASEAN accounts for comes out smaller.

Carry away the ratio rather than the raw number: ASEAN is worth close to one rupee in every nine of India's foreign trade, a large partner but not a dominant one.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
16 percent of India’s global trade — Sixteen percent of a roughly USD 1.1 trillion trade basket means India–ASEAN trade of about USD 178 billion in 2023-24.
That is around half again as large as the trade actually recorded with the bloc, so the share overstates ASEAN's weight in India's external trade.
(c)
25 percent of India’s global trade — A quarter share needs India–ASEAN trade of about USD 279 billion, more than double the value actually recorded.
A wrong denominator also lands near here: roughly USD 120 billion divided by exports alone, about USD 437 billion, is about 27-28 percent, and 25 percent is the closest option to that.
(d)
21 percent of India’s global trade — Twenty-one percent implies India–ASEAN trade of about USD 234 billion, roughly twice the figure for 2023-24.
A share this size would put one bloc close to a fifth of everything India buys and sells abroad, which is out of scale with a trade flow of about USD 120 billion.

Concept

A trade share is one ratio: a partner's bilateral trade divided by the country's total trade with the world, both taken for the same period and both counting exports and imports together.

Because the denominator is the whole external trade basket, a share can fall even while the rupee or dollar value of trade with that partner rises. Value and share are two different statements.

ASEAN sits at the centre of India's Act East Policy, and the economic side of that relationship runs through the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement and its ongoing review.

The share matters because it tells you what kind of partner ASEAN is. A figure near a ninth of India's trade explains why the bloc gets summit-level attention without being the single decisive market for Indian exports.

Key facts

ASEAN was founded on 8 August 1967 through the Bangkok Declaration, signed by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
The ASEAN Secretariat is located at Jakarta in Indonesia.
India became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995 and a summit-level partner in 2002.
The ASEAN-India relationship was raised to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2022, three decades after the dialogue began.
The ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) was signed in August 2009 and took effect on 1 January 2010.
India's merchandise trade in 2023-24 was about USD 1.1 trillion, roughly USD 437 billion of exports and roughly USD 677 billion of imports.
India's merchandise trade with ASEAN in 2023-24 was of the order of USD 120 billion, and the 11 percent share is computed on this merchandise basis.
Myanmar is the ASEAN member state with a land boundary with India, touching Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram.

Each option is a dollar figure in disguise

11 percent — keyed→about USD 120 bn, matching 2023-24 trade

16 percent→would need about USD 178 bn

21 percent→would need about USD 234 bn

25 percent→would need about USD 279 bn

Shares converted against India's 2023-24 merchandise trade of roughly USD 1.1 trillion, the basis on which the official share is computed; only the keyed row matches the reported India–ASEAN trade value.

Study next

ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) and its reviewAct East Policy and the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic PartnershipRCEP and India's decision to stay outDirection of India's trade: leading partner countries and blocsASEAN institutional basics: Bangkok Declaration, summits, SecretariatIndia-Myanmar connectivity projects and the land route to Southeast Asia

Common traps

The stem asks what share ASEAN takes of India's trade; read the other way round, as India's share of ASEAN's trade, it is a different ratio with a different answer.
The denominator must be India's global trade for the year — exports plus imports. Dividing by exports alone inflates the share towards the higher options.
Trade shares shift year on year, so a percentage carried over from an older India-ASEAN briefing need not be the 2023-24 figure the stem asks for.
Widening ASEAN into a larger grouping such as RCEP or 'the Indo-Pacific' enlarges the numerator and produces a share that does not answer this stem.
A rising bilateral trade value does not by itself mean a rising share, because India's total trade is growing at the same time.

Share-of-total items hand you four percentages and expect one remembered number. The reliable handle is a magnitude you can convert: hold the bilateral trade value and the size of India's overall trade, then divide and see which option survives.

The same material has also been set as a statement-based item on RCEP.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2018_GS1_Q342018

Same relationship, different handle: that item asks which countries are ASEAN's free-trade partners, placing India inside ASEAN's economic network. This one asks for a number — the bloc's share of India's trade in a named year — so the 2018 question tests a membership list while this tests a statistic.

CDS_GK_2024_I_Q1142024

Both sit on the India-ASEAN trade architecture. The CDS item verifies statements about RCEP and India's decision to stay out of it; the UKPSC item asks how much trade actually flows between India and ASEAN. One is about an agreement, the other about a share.

CDS_GK_2025_II_Q1092025

The same organisation, approached institutionally: that item matches ASEAN to its year of formation, 1967. This one leaves the founding aside and asks for a current trade share, so preparation for one does not cover the other.

CAPF_GAI_2024_Q1102024

The shared skill is share-of-total arithmetic for the same financial year, 2023-24. The CAPF item ranks sources of Central Government revenue by percentage contribution, which is domestic fiscal data and asks for an ordering; the UKPSC item asks for a single external-trade percentage.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established by the Bangkok Declaration in which year?
- (a)1961
- (b)1967
- (c)1976
- (d)1992
Answerb — ASEAN was founded on 8 August 1967, when Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand signed the Bangkok Declaration.
1961 belongs to the earlier Association of Southeast Asia, not to ASEAN. 1976 is the year of the first ASEAN Summit at Bali and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. 1992 is when India became a sectoral dialogue partner.
practice — not a real PYQ
India's merchandise trade with ASEAN in 2023-24 was of the order of USD 120 billion, and ASEAN accounted for about 11 percent of India's global merchandise trade that year. India's total merchandise trade in 2023-24 was therefore closest to:
- (a)USD 550 billion
- (b)USD 750 billion
- (c)USD 1.1 trillion
- (d)USD 2.2 trillion
Answerc — dividing about USD 120 billion by 0.11 gives roughly USD 1.1 trillion.
USD 550 billion would make ASEAN's share about 22 percent and USD 750 billion about 16 percent, both far above the stated 11 percent. USD 2.2 trillion would push the share down to roughly 5 percent, well below it.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following ASEAN member States shares a land boundary with India?
- (a)Thailand
- (b)Vietnam
- (c)Myanmar
- (d)Cambodia
Answerc — Myanmar borders Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, and it is the land bridge for India's Act East connectivity projects.
Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia lie further east on the Indochinese peninsula, separated from Indian territory by Myanmar.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following statements about India and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is correct?
- (a)India signed RCEP along with the ASEAN member States in November 2020
- (b)India took part in the RCEP negotiations but did not join the agreement
- (c)India was not invited to take part in the RCEP negotiations
- (d)RCEP took effect in 2022 with India among the parties to it
Answerb — India negotiated RCEP from its launch in 2012 and announced in November 2019 that it would not join; the agreement was signed in November 2020 without India.
That disposes of (a) and (d): India neither signed in 2020 nor became a party when RCEP took effect at the start of 2022. (c) fails because India sat at the table throughout as one of ASEAN's free-trade-agreement partners.