Strong ocean imports and exports will sustain Indian trade growth over the three-month period ending in January 2020, making it the only country out of the world's seven largest economies with a positive trade outlook, according to data from the DHL Global Trade Barometer released by DHL.

The DHL Global Trade Barometer, an early indicator of global trade developments calculated using Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, predicts mildly positive growth for Indian trade driven primarily by an uptake in ocean imports of basic & industrial raw materials and chemicals & products, coupled with a gradual revival in air exports of consumer fashion goods.

In total, DHL said ocean trade grew by 10 points, maintaining India's positive outlook even as air trade forecasts experience relative weakness.

 "India has the strongest trade forecast this quarter and the highest index value of all countries in the latest Global Trade Barometer survey, followed closely by the United Kingdom and Japan," said Niki Frank, CEO, DHL Global Forwarding India.

"This highlights the underlying potential of India's economy, which will benefit from the government's plan to invest US$1.39 trillion in infrastructure projects. The country's commitment to establishing itself as a strategic maritime hub with initiatives and investments in coastal infrastructure appear to be supporting the Index's positive ocean trade outlook and will likely also contribute positively to longer-term trade growth," she added.

Steady but mild decline negatively affects all countries, except India

The Barometer's results also suggest that world trade is expected to continue at a moderate pace but would further contract for the next three months, driven by minor decreases in both air and containerized ocean trade.

Against previous quarters this year, the downward trend in trade growth remains mostly stable, neither indicating an acceleration of the decline nor a bottoming out of the contractionary movement, it added.

"All seven nations monitored by the Barometer received indexes below 50 points except for India, where the Barometer forecasts moderate growth of five points to 54 points for India," the study conducted by the logistics firm said.

While Japan and the UK, it noted that it had been the only countries with positive trade outlooks in the previous update in September, the two countries record the highest losses in this period.

"According to the DHL Global Trade Barometer, the year will probably end with moderate world trade. However, we've to bear in mind where we come from: The rapid growth world trade has undergone in recent years was like climbing the Mount Everest. Now, we are on the descent, but we are still breathing altitude air", said Tim Scharwath, CEO of DHL global forwarding, freight.

"A countless number of stable trade relations continues to flourish worldwide, despite smouldering trade conflicts and geopolitical uncertainties," he added.