India's major trading partners are USA, UK, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Hong Kong, UAE, China, Switzerland, Singapore and Malaysia.

India's major items of exports include textiles, garments, gems and jewellery, engineering products and chemicals, agriculture and allied products.

India's major items of imports include crude oil and petroleum products, capital goods, electronic goods, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, gold, silver and chemicals.

The difference between contract manufacturing and wholly owned subsidiary is discussed below:

The major reason behind international business is that the countries cannot produce equally well or cheaply all the commodities. This is called theory of comparative cost advantage. It is so because resources are unequally distributed in natural resources. Some countries are abundant in one commodity and scarce in others while opposite is true for some other country. It makes a case for international trade and exchanging abundant commodity with scarce commodity by nations. Different nations are endowed with different factors of production which includes land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. For example, India is a labour abundant country. Therefore, it is advisable for India to produce such commodities which use labour-intensive methods and exchange it for those which use capital-intensive methods. USA is a capital abundant country. Therefore, nations need to trade. Due to these reasons one country has a comparative advantage in production of particular goods as compared to other countries. Consequently, each country fins it advantageous to produce those selected goods and services that it can produce more effectively at home and importing those goods in which other nations have a comparative cost advantage.

The following are some of the advantages of foreign trade:
1. Optimum use of resources:
Foreign trade helps in the optimum use of natural resources and avoids wastages of resources. It ensures the presence of stable price by avoiding wide fluctuations in prices. It tries to equalise the world price.
2. Increased standard of living:
It ensures more production to meet the demand of the people of different countries. By increased production, it becomes possible to increase income and the standard of living of its people. It also increases the standard of living by increasing more employment opportunities. It enables a country to import those goods which it cannot produce.
3. Large scale production:
It ensures large production because the production is carried on to meet the demand of its people as well as world market. Large scale production also ensures a great deal of internal economies which reduces the cost of production.

Difference between international trade and international business is similar to difference between trade and business.
1. The scope of international business is much wider than international trade. International trade means exports and imports of goods which is an important component of international business but international business includes much more than this.
2. International trade in services like travel and tourism, transportation, communication, banking, warehousing, distribution and advertising is a part of international business.
3. International business also includes foreign direct investments, contract manufacturing, and setting up wholly owned subsidiaries etc. which are not included in international trade.

Trade in services is called invisible trade. Since services are invisible, export and import of services has been named as invisible trade. In absolute terms, there has been significant increase in India's foreign trade in services. Export and import of foreign travel, transportation and insurance has largely increased during last four decades. There has been a change in composition of services exports. Software and other miscellaneous services have emerged as the main categories of India's export of services. Share of travel and transportation has declined to 29.6 % in 2003-04 from 64.3 % in 1995 - 96 while the share of software exports has increased from 10.2 % in 1995-96 to 49 % in 2003 - 04.
Table showing Percentage share of major services to total services exports

The composition of India's external trade has been changing. During 1950s and 60s exports were mainly of primary goods. Over time, the role of engineering goods has been increasing. Overall manufactured goods constitute 66 % of total exports, of which engineering goods are 27%. Textiles and textile products, garments and leather products make around 10 % of India's exports.
In nutshell, we can say that the role of the external or internationally traded goods sector has been growing steadily in Indian economy. At present imports and exports together account for upto 49 %of India's GDP which was 18 % in 1990s. In India there is greater share of exports of services which are IT software services, called ITenabled services CITES). It contributed more than 20 % of India's export earnings. India accounts for about 45 % of the world's BPO services. The major Indian IT companies, TCS, Infosys and Wipro, initiated and perfected the Global Services Delivery (GSD) model. It is because India has a vast pool of software engineers and an even bigger pool of English-knowing staff. With growing competition in the market for such services, Indian companies have moved from BPO to Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), which involves providing services for R and D and to high-end consulting.

The trade between two or more nations is termed as foreign trade or international trade. It involves exchange of goods and services between the trades of two countries. Foreign trade consists of import trade, export trade and -entrepot trade. In the early stages of human civilization, production was confined as per consumption. Human wants were limited. Nowadays, human wants are increasing and as such no man was considered to be self-dependant. Like this no country can live in isolation and claimed the status to be self-sufficient. Because of this reason countries have trade relationships with each other. The primary objective of foreign trade is to increase foreign trade and increase the standard of living of its people.
There is an increasing demand for foreign trade because of the following reasons:
(a) The natural resources are unevenly distributed.
(b) The presence of specialisation and division of labour.
(c) Different countries have difference in economic growth rate.
(d) The presence of the theory of comparative cost.
The following are some of the advantages of foreign trade:
1. Optimum use of Resources:
Foreign trade helps in the optimum use of natural resources and avoids wastages of resources.
2. Stable Price:
It ensures the presence of stable price by avoiding wide fluctuations in prices. It tries to equalise the world price.
3. Availability of all types of goods:
It enables a country to import those goods which it cannot produce.
4. Increased Standard of living:
It ensures more production to meet the demand of the people of different countries. By increased production, it becomes possible to increase income and the standard of living of its people. It also increases the standard of living by increasing more employment opportunities.
5. Large Scale production:
It ensures large production because the prouction is carried on to meet the demand of its people as well as world market. Large scale production also ensures a great deal of internal economies which reduces the cost of production.

It is rightly said that international business is more than international trade. The scope of international business is much wider than international trade. International trade means exports and imports of goods which is an important component of international business but international business includes much more than this. International trade in services like travel and tourism, transportation, communication, banking, warehousing, distribution and advertising is a part of international business. International business also includes foreign direct investments, contract manufacturing, and setting up wholly owned subsidiaries etc. which are not included in international trade. It is clear from the diagram given below:

International business refers to business which is carried on in two or more nations. It means carrying on business activities beyond national boundaries. These activities normally include the transaction of economic resources such as goods, capital, services (comprising technology, skilled labour, and transportation, etc.), and international production. It refers to that business activity that takes place beyond the geographical limits of a country. Production may either involve production of physical goods or provision of services like banking, finance, insurance, construction, trading, and so on. Thus, international business includes not only international trade of goods and services but also foreign investment, especially foreign direct investment.
Differences between International Business and Domestic Business are summarised below: