Fact Check: Senior journalist Pankaj Pachauri falsely claims India's imports from China up by 27%
By Satya Priya BN Published on 20 Oct 2020 1:26 PM GMT
Hyderabad: Senior journalist Pankaj Pachauri, on 19 October, tweeted that India's imports from China increased by 27 per cent during the period April-August.
His tweet read, "While India shows "red eyes" to China at LAC and invites Quad navies to encircle "the Dragon" India's imports from China increase 27% between April-August. The business of politics do not come in the way of real business. Never (sic)."
Archive link of the claim can be found here.
Fact Check:
The claim is FALSE.
After a serious backlash from several Twitter users who shared news reports published in August and September 2020 stating that exports from India to China, and not imports, have increased by 27per cent between April and August, the journalist released a corrigendum.
In his corrigendum, he mentioned that a government functionary had pointed out that India's exports and not imports had increased by 27 percent from April onwards. "The point is that trade with China is increasing while we have an eyeball to eyeball situation at LAC And China's share in our trade has also increased meanwhile," he wrote.
Talking in the Parliament in September 2020, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal had announced that India's imports from China had declined by 27.63 percent during April-August this fiscal to $21.58 billion over the same period the previous year. The value of imports from China stood at $4.98 billion in August and $5.58 in July.
Several media websites had reported his statements.
According to a report in Business Standard, India's robust double-digit exports growth to China, coupled with a sharp contraction in imports nearly halved the trade gap between the two trading partners in the first five months of the current fiscal year over the same period of 2019-20.
PIB Fact Check had debunked Mr. Pachauri's claim and tweeted, "@PankajPachauri has claimed in a #Tweet that India's imports from China has increased by 27% during April-August. #PIBFactCheck: This claim is #Fake. India's imports from China decreased by 27.63% whereas India's exports to China increased by 27% during April-August."
The claim was debunked by others, too.
Hence, Mr. Pachauri's claim that imports from China to India increased by 27 percent from April to August is FALSE. However, he later amended his statement.
