The Hindu Business Line : India, China sign pact on transparency in trade

Expanding ties: The Commerce Secretary, Mr G.K. Pillai, and the Chinese Vice-Minister, Mr Gao Hucheng, at a press conference after signing an agreement on trade remedy cooperation mechanism, in the Capital on Friday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct 10 India and China on Friday entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on trade remedy cooperation. This would ensure more transparency as well as better understanding of the anti-dumping and other investigations that are taken by the two countries against each other, the Commerce Secretary, Mr G.K. Pillai, said here today.

The MoU was exchanged in the presence of the visiting Chinese Vice-Minister, Mr Gao Hucheng, and Mr Pillai. “This is to have greater understanding on why certain steps are taken and the logic behind that. That is where the cooperation is taking place”, Mr Pillai told reporters here.

He also highlighted that India has been one of the largest initiators of anti-dumping action against China.

Largest partner

Mr Pillai also confirmed that China would emerge as the largest trading partner of India this year.

“Three years ago, we were looking at bilateral target of $40 billion by 2010.

“Today, we have already crossed that figure. The Minister was mentioning that we will probably cross $ 50 billion by the end of the year. We are now really looking at a figure of $100 billion in the next five years of bilateral trade”, Mr Pillai said.

Earlier, Mr Hucheng and Mr Pillai discussed ways to increase cooperation between the Ministries of the two countries with a view to facilitating more trade between India and China.

Trade up 47%

Meanwhile, the Commerce Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, said that India-China trade in 2007-08 reached $37.8 billion, an increase of 47 per cent over 2006-07.

Interacting with the Chinese Vice-Minister, Mr Nath said there are enormous opportunities for both India and China in expanding trade in services particularly in construction and engineering, education, entertainment, financial services, IT & IT-enabled services, transport, tourism and health.

Both sides talked about holding the 8th Joint Economic Group (JEG) at a mutually convenient date. The 7th JEG meeting was held in March 2006.

After the opening of the third border trade point between India and China, the Chinese side has been looking for expanding the scope of trade through Nathu La.

Nathu La trade

In July 2007, the Indian side proposed an addition of 24 more commodities tradable through Nathu La, mainly food items.

In turn, the Chinese side proposed 36 commodities including machinery, motor cycles and electrical appliances. The top sectors attracting FDI inflows (January 2000 to March 2008) from China are trading, industrial machinery, mining, hotel & tourism and drugs & pharmaceuticals.

The top sectors attracting technology from China are metallurgical industries, chemicals (other than fertilisers), electrical equipment, industrial machinery and drugs & pharmaceuticals.

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