India and China today agreed to work on improving the skewed bilateral trade relations and sort out the contentious border issue, which has often soured relations between the two countries.

As part of the trade balancing initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is on a three-day visit to India, announced on Thursday that China will continue to take active steps to give more market access to products from India, including pharmaceutical and farm goods. Further, he also committed investments of $20 billion over five years.

Addressing the media, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that during his talks with Xi he had expressed concern over the the worsening trade imbalance and sought the Chinese President’s partnership in improving market access and investment opportunities for Indian companies there. According to Indian statistics, with an increase in the bilateral trade over the last decade, the trade imbalance against India also increased exponentially from $18.65 billion in 2009 to $36.86 billion in 2013.

Border incidents

Modi also conveyed to Xi his serious concerns over repeated incidents along the India-China border. “We agreed that peace and tranquillity in the border region constitutes an essential foundation for mutual trust and confidence and for realising the full potential of our relationship. This is an important understanding, which should be strictly observed,” Modi said

The Prime Minister added that while border related agreements and confidence building measures have worked well, “I also suggested that clarification of Line of Actual Control would greatly contribute to our efforts to maintain peace and tranquillity and requested President Xi to resume the stalled process of clarifying the LAC. We should also seek an early settlement to the boundary question.”

Modi said that he also raised the issues of China’s visa policy and trans-border rivers.

History issue: Xi

The Chinese President termed the boundary question, “an issue left from history… In the many years the two sides have made steady and positive progress in their boundary negotiations.”

Modi said that India and China will begin discussions on civil nuclear energy cooperation that will bolster a broader cooperation on energy security. Inviting Chinese investments in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, Modi said that he was pleased with the agreements on two Chinese industrial parks in India.

The two sides exchanged 12 documents, including a five-year roadmap for promoting balanced and sustainable development of economic and trade relations between the two nations on the principle of equality and mutual benefits.

The two sides agreed to cooperate in the Railways sector with Xi saying that the two leaders agreed to increase the speed on the existing rail section from Chennai to Mysore via Bangalore. “We also agreed to cooperate on training in heavy haulage transportation and exploring cooperation in the redevelopment of stations as also in the area of high-speed railway,” said Xi.

The two sides decided to declare 2015 as the Visit India year in China and 2016 as the Visit China year in India.

Today’s meeting at Hyderabad House was marred by Tibetan protestors breaking the police barricade and reaching the building’s outer perimeter. But they were shepherded away by the police.

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