In the decades prior to 1991, India followed a highly statist and interventionist development policies leading to a period of a severely distorted production structure. This culminated in too deep economic crises at the outset of the ninety nineties. Faced with a severe balance of payments crisis, India entered into an IMF influenced structural adjustment program. In addition to the conventional expenditure switching and reducing policies, as part of the IMF agreement, a range of far-reaching economic policy reforms was launched in July 1991 in the external, industrial, financial and public sectors. Although the reforms mainly dealt with industry and trade policies, these policies do have its impact on the external sector. It is in the context of this that the present study examines the effect of the reforms on the external sector variables like exports, imports, terms of trade etc.