Against the world average of 10 per cent, India's services imports grew by a hefty 40 per cent in 2006 while exports jumped by 34 per cent, thus emerging as the most dynamic country in services trade.
Ranked at the 10th position, the country's services exports totalled $73 billion while imports were only a shade below at $70 billion with the global ranking of 12, according to the report.
"While the dynamic growth of India's commercial - and in particular software services - exports are widely reported, the dynamic expansion of its services imports attracts less attention even though the growth rate in 2006 exceeded that of exports," the report said.
India's commercial services imports are only about five per cent short of its commercial services exports. In goods trade, India ranked as the 17th largest importer and 28th as exporter.
India is growing at an impressive rate in both exports and imports of services amid stagnant global trend. The country's share in both global services exports and imports is 2.7 per cent.
Despite a sterling performance in terms of growth, China's commercial services exports are estimated to have surpassed those of India. China was eighth among the top 10 services exporters and seventh among importers.
The world commercial services exports rose by 11 per cent to $ 2.7 trillion. "The expansion rate of global services trade was basically unchanged from the preceding year and that of the last six years. Since 2003, commercial services exports expanded less rapidly each year than merchandise trade," the WTO said.
Asia's commercial services exports continued for the third consecutive year to expand faster than the global average and faster than the region's services imports, thereby reducing the region's deficit in services trade. Japan, the region's largest commercial services trader, increased its commercial services exports by 12 per cent.
"Among the major Asian traders, India continues to excel in terms of its services trade expansion," the report said. Among the three broad commercial services categories, transportation, travel and "other commercial services", the latter is by far the largest and also the fastest growing category.
In 2006, other commercial services categories expanded by 13 per cent while transportation and travel services were up by nine per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
The top three leading traders - US, UK and Germany - maintained their ranks for both exports and imports. If the export contraction of France's commercial services is confirmed, Japan would replace it as the world's fourth largest services exporter. Italy moved ahead of Spain to rank as the sixth largest exporter.
On the import side, no change occurred among the top 10 positions in 2006. According to the provisional data, India's imports are estimated to have exceeded slightly those of Korea, even though the latter's' imports also increased strongly in 2006.