Iraq is India's second-largest crude oil supplier, with trade of US$27.51 billion in the last financial year

Background

Iraq's oil economy, now under strain, reaches India directly. The Embassy of India in Baghdad records that Iraq is India's second-largest crude oil supplier, having been the largest from 2017 to 2022. Bilateral trade in 2025-26 stood at US$27.51 billion, made up of Indian imports of US$24.55 billion and exports of US$2.958 billion, a decline of 14.46 per cent from US$33.36 billion in 2024-25. The two countries signed a Treaty of Friendship in 1952 and marked 70 years of diplomatic ties in 2022. An estimated 25,000 Indians live in Iraq, mainly in Baghdad, the Kurdistan Region, Basra, Najaf and Karbala; before the 1991 Gulf War the community numbered more than 80,000.