16 Journal of Commerce & Trade April 2016 Vol. XI No. 1 IMPACT FACTOR 3.860 ISSN (P) : 0973-4503 ISSN (E) : 2454-1702 RNI : UPENG 2006/17831 www.jctindia.org Anuj Gupta Research Scholar (JRF), Faculty of Commerce, Banaras Hindu University. Ravi Kumar Research Scholar (SRF), Faculty of Commerce, Banaras Hindu University. Bilateral Trade of India with Middle East Countries : A Study of Iran 1. INTRODUCTION Foreign trade has played an important role in the development of any nation. It has helped in developing various types of relationship among the trading countries. India & Iran relations span centuries marked by meaningful interactions. The two countries shared a border till 1947 and share several common features in their language, culture and traditions. Both South Asia and the Persian Gulf have strong commercial, energy, cultural and people-to-people links. However, the trade relations have traditionally been controlled by Indian import of Iranian crude oil resulting in overall trade balance in favor of Iran. Both the countries have immense share in educational system also. Many students of Iran come to India, vice-versa. Apart from social, cultural, educational & historical linkage, both the country posses economic trade behavior with each other from long era. Indus valley civilization too shows many traces of trade among the two nations. In the recent past, the two countries exchanges huge amount of energy & edibles. In this paper, the emphasis is made on the status of international trade between them & some opportunities thereon. Recently, the P.M. of India visited in Iran building good relation among the citizens. A trade of petroleum product will took place with the essence of pipe line building among Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan- India. It is assumed that more emphasis is made on the global peace & empowerment with the said project. 2. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY Following are the major objectives of this research paper : (a) To study the present status of both the countries in World Trade. Pages 16-27 http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jct:journl:v:11:y:2016:i:1:p:16-27 https://ideas.repec.org/a/jct/journl/v11y2016i1p16-27.html http://jctindia.org/april2016/v11i1-2.pdf Abstract From the recent past, it has been seen that the structure of international trade is made simple & smoothening. India is having a good political, cultural & economic relationship with Iran. Iranian oil is very popular in India while the cereals & other food materials are popular in Iran. The need of present hour is to build stronger trade relation with Middle East nations, among them Iran is an important country. From the study it has been found that the trade balance is negative for India in the recent past. The share of total export to Iran is also very low. Hence, policies should be made to encourage this trade between the two nations. Oil is the chief commodity imported due to its natural superiority. An alternative use for oil must be developed to decrease the use of oil in the nation. Better export of arts & artifacts must be done to improve the quantity of export from India. Political relation must be made stronger to enhance the trading between the nations. Providing better environment to the exporters through subsidies, financial & technical assistance, etc. to enhance the total growth of export will be a better option. Keywords: smoothening, Iranian oil, trade relation, Middle East, better environment.