Bilateral trade between India and China is expected to go up to over USD 80 billion by March 2017, according to estimates by PHD Chamber of Commerce.
"In the next couple of years, the Chinese investments into India are estimated at about USD 80 billion which is not very significant considering their potential, but with increased momentum through diplomatic and political channels, the investments of China towards India and India's investments into China are expected to multiply manifold," PHD Chamber President Sharad Jaipuria said.
The trade gap between the two countries stood at USD 35 billion in favour of China. The total bilateral trade was at USD 66.4 billion last year.
Jaipuria also expressed confidence that with the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to India, the country will benefit in terms of accelerating its manufacturing, especially of equipment and machinery such as electric, electronics, mobiles, engineering, heavy engineering, power and oil & gas.
Besides, India and China today inked 12 pacts in a range of areas including railways and outer space as Beijing pledged investments of USD 20 billion over five years in a bid to boost economic ties and address India's concerns over trade deficit.
"The Chinese President's visit augurs well for India given the current urgent intent to focus on manufacturing and infrastructure for reviving economic growth.
"Besides direct investment and finance in various infrastructure sectors, direct areas of interest to India is China's expertise in manufacturing telecom and solar equipments in support of India's 20 GW generation target by 2020, power equipment and railways and setting up industrial parks," Senior Director at Deloitte India Kalpana Jain said.
The agreements were signed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held extensive talks on entire gamut of ties between the two countries, including the boundary dispute and visa issue.
