India-China sign MoU on trade remedy (Update MoU)

New Delhi, Oct 10 : India and China on Friday signed a bilateral cooperation to increase cross border trade and lessen the trade gap between the two countries.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is aimed at ensuring transparency and better understanding of technical and other matters related to anti-dumping and trade barriers.

In an attempt to bolster trade ties with India, China has opted for trade diplomacy and a 70-member business delegation from China led by Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng arrived in the capital today.

In a joint press conference Commerce Secretary G.K. Pillai along with Hucheng, said that issues related to trade imbalance were discussed at length during the talks between the two sides.

"India and China have had a close cooperation in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as we have supported each other in ensuring a development dimension to the Doha round of talks and we hope to take this cooperation further in our bilateral relationship to increase trade between the two countries," said Pillai.

Hucheng said that trade remedies need to be taken into consideration and allegations like trade dumping need to be addressed at the earliest to step up cooperation between the two countries.

"India and China are the most frequently targeted members in the WTO in the anti-dumping investigations. India has not only launched anti-dumping investigation against China among WTO's developing nations, India is also one of the most frequently targeted members by anti-dumping investigations," said Hucheng.

"In terms of trade remedies, it is highly necessary for the two countries to step up cooperation at the technical level between businesses and the governments," added Hucheng.

Both the countries are expected to sign at least 38 MoUs worth 370 million dollars in different sectors including textile machinery, garments, steel, agriculture, science and technology and electronics.

The two countries are to raise their bilateral trade to 60 billion dollars by 2010.

Bilateral trade in 2007 stood at 38.65 billion dollars, registering an increase of 56 per cent over the previous year.

ANI