India and China took their economic relationship a step forward today, signing a memorandum of understanding on ‘Expansion of Trade and Economic Cooperation’ and recognising the need for “balanced trade”. The MoU was signed here in the presence of Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma.
Later, Sharma called on Chinese premier Wen Jiabao who assured the Indian minister that China would take measures to reduce its trade surplus with India and help promote Indian exports to China, said India’s ambassador in Beijing, S Jaishankar. The two sides agreed that bilateral trade should touch the $60-billion mark this year.
China and India were not “competitive opponents” but “cooperative partners” Wen told Sharma. “Only if China and India achieve common development and prosperity could we have a real Asia century,” he told Sharma.
The MoU explicitly “recognised that a balanced trade was conducive to long term, sustainable and harmonious development of our economic cooperation”. It stated that both governments would “give special attention to improving the trade situation to ensure greater value addition in their bilateral trade and promote the introduction of additional goods and services in their markets. While the Indian side will take conscious initiatives to promote its goods in China, the Chinese side will strive to import as much of its requirement of value added goods from India as possible”.
The MoU identifies food products, pharmaceuticals, IT & IT enabled services as important sectors for further trade promotion. It also commits the two governments to promote “closer inter-bank relations to expand trade, economic and financial engagements” and to a simplification of “visa procedures”. India has been demanding simplification of phytosanitary and quarantine procedures to help promote food product exports to China.