India offers more sugar to China

India has offered to export more sugar, tobacco, cotton and horticultural products to China.

This offer was made by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar when a visiting Chinese delegation called on him to discuss the prospects of increasing bilateral trade in farm products.

The Chinese team was led by the minister for general administration of quality supervision, Li Changjiang.

Pawar said India was in a comfortable position to export horticultural items, sugar and cotton to China provided there was consumer demand for the products.

A beginning in this direction has already been made, by the export of grapes and mangoes, as the Chinese government was satisfied with the Indian capacity to enforce the requisite protocols for exports of these items. India has a surplus on agricultural trade with China.

In 2005-06 India's total export of agricultural items to China was worth around $250.87 million, while the imports from that country amounted to $56.22 million.

The major export items comprised spices, oilmeals, sesame seeds, castor oil and marine products. Imports from China included pulses and spices.