A slew of trade and investment agreements will be signed between India and China during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, even though the Indian government and industry are not yet ready for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two Asian giants."A Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA) and two protocols on easing the export procedures for rice and iron ore to China will be signed during President's visit starting November 20," sources said. Cabinet has already cleared BIPA, which will be in force for 10 years.However, the Chinese insistence on speeding up the FTA met with resistance from the government and the industry. For studying the feasibility of FTA, a joint task force comprising officials and businessmen from both sides has been set up."The task force has met twice and is expected to hold two more meetings to finalise its report by October next year," sources said.During the visit of Hu, the Chinese side is also expected to seek from India a market economy status, a long-pending demand. The official-level joint working group - a permanent mechanism to settle trade issues - has in its recent meeting failed to come at an agreement on it.Only 57 countries recognise China as a market economy as under World Trade Organisation (WTO) it will get this status only by 2016.India, on its side, will seek greater market access from China for agriculture including fruits, vegetables and grains. "India is seeking access to 17 agri products. China has already agreed to import our rice, mangoes and grapes. The procedural bottlenecks are, however, coming in the way of exports of these products," officials said adding the protocol on rice would streamline it at least for one major commodity.
