Technology imports are an indication of technology diffusion and technology absorption capability. Like Indis's R&D spending, the figures on technology imports do not tell the full story.
CTIER HandbookCTIER Handbook: Technology and Innovation in India 2023 is comprehensive with the above limitations.
From the report:
Based on firm level data5 available for industry, the figure above shows a steady increase for technology payments (that includes royalty and technical fees)6 between 2017-18 and 2020-21. India’s total technology payments on the other hand as reported by the RBI has seen a steady increase over the same period.7 There has been a drop in the number of firms over the five years for whom technology payments data is available. It is unclear whether the difference between the industry level data and the aggregate data has been entirely due to unavailability of firm level data. Currently, a breakdown of RBI’s technology payments data by industry is unavailable. Furthermore, it is also difficult to discern from the aggregate level data how much of the payments were towards patented technologies by higher technology or knowledge intensive firms and how much of it may have been towards payments for copyrights and trademarks.
