Better trade ties between India, China stressed

Expedite setting up of Sino-Indian FTA: CCPIT

The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) has called for quickening the pace of establishing Sino-Indian Free Trade Area (FTA).

Speaking at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on 'China: A India Opportunity,' Wang Jinzhen, assistant chairman, CCPIT, said that both China and India are the world' largest developing countries but the bilateral trade and economic cooperation is too small compared to their economies.

"So we need to find ways to expand and establishing China-India FTA is a way out. This issue is under study and should be expedited," he added. The Chinese government has set an objective to increase the two-way trade between India and China to $20 billion by 2008 and $30 billion by 2010.

"India is the only country in South Asia that China has a trade deficit with. During January-May 2005, Sino-Indian trade reached $7.71 billion, a 41 per cent increase over the same period last year. While China's exports are mainly machinery, electrical goods and textiles, India's exports to China are mainly mineral products, chemical products and plastics," Jinzhen said.

Aiming to woo Indian entities to invest in China, Jinzhen said that they were expecting their GDP of the year 2000 to double by 2010 and redoubled by 2020.

Speaking about the investment climate in China, he added, "By the end of May 2005, the Chinese government approved 5,25,378 foreign invested projects with contractual value of $1.16 trillion."

"However, we still lack in key technologies for our export products and 57 per cent of exports were by foreign invested enterprises. We are also short of our own brand products and we are now working on improving in this area," Jinzhen said.

The CCPIT and the CII signed a memorandum of understanding at the conference, aiming at promoting trade and commerce besides exchange of data and business delegations between the two countries.