India, China trade set to grow to 20 billion dollars

New Delhi, Mar 16: India and China are poised to achieve 20 billion dollar bilateral trade turnover by the year 2007, a year ahead of the target set earlier, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today (Mar 16, 2006) said.

The Minister indicattion in keynote address at the India-China Joint Business Forum here today where Mr Bo Xilai, Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, was the Guest of Honour, along with a large business delegation from China.

The two Ministers earlier co-chaired the 7th Meeting of the India-China Joint Economic Group (JEG), which took place after a gap of six years. ''That it coincides with the celebration of India-China Friendship Year is of additional significance. I also note that this is the first JEG meeting after China's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)'', Mr Kamal Nath observed.

Both Mr Bo and Mr Nath emphasised that trade and economic cooperation held the key to strengthening the overall bilateral relationship. Mr Kamal Nath also underlined the need to decide on an early operationalisation of the border trade across the Nathu La pass.

During the year 2000-01, the bilateral trade volume was barely two billion dollar. This increased to 11.3 billion dollars in 2004-05.

''This year our bilateral trade will be in excess of 15 billion dollar '' Mr Kamal Nath said, reflecting rapidly expanding bilateral economic relationship.

At the same time, he stressed the -- both at the JEG Meeting as well as the Joint Business Forum -- that the trade basket continued to be narrow and restricted to a limited range of goods. For instance, Indian exports are dominated by raw materials and products of natural resource based industries, he said.

The JEG discussions focussed on implementation of the recommendations of the Report of the Joint Study Group (JSG) which was constituted in June 2003 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Wen Jiabao to examine the potential complementarities between the two countries.

UNI