Trade through Nathu la pass comes to a close

Gangtok, Sep 28: The border trade between India and China through Nathu La pass will come to a close this afternoon for this year after successfully conducting business for three months.

Nathu La pass, a part of the old silk route, was reopened on July six for the resumption of trade after several rounds of discussions between the two countries, 44 years after it was closed following the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict.

The Management committee of the Richengang Border Trade mart in the Tibetian Autonomous Region (TAR) is organising a solidarity meeting of the traders of both countries at Richengang trade mart at 1400 hrs today to promote the trade activities between the countries.

Sikkim Chamber of Commerce President S K Sarda said around 60 businessmen from Indian side are expected to participate in the meeting.

Sikkim Commerce and Industries Secretary C L Denzogapa and Mr Sarda said, ''the reopening of the trade route helped to improve the relations and cooperation between the peoples living on both sides of the border, besides, contributing to the economic prosperity of the people living in border areas.'' Both the trade body and the government expressed their satisfaction over the volume of trade.

Giving detail statistics about the volume of trade Mr Denzogpa said though the final figure was yet to be worked out, commodities worth Rs 11.58 lakh will be transacted till December 18.

Mr Denzogpa said though it was the first year of the trade and the traders were inexperienced and the business was conducted for a short span of time still it was highly successful. The trade, being conducted four days a week- Monday to Thursday, which will be carried out from June one to September 30, every year, as per the agreement reached between the two countries started on July 27 this year only after the Centre waived the mandatory provision of possessing the Import Export Code for the local traders.

While rice, snuff and cigarettes were mainly exported to TAR, the Indian traders mainly imported raw wool. Giving the break up, Mr Denzogpa said goods worth Rs 5.51 lakh were exported to China and commodities worth Rs 6.7 lakh were imported to India by September 18.

He said the volume of trade was high in comparison to the volume of trade in Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh in Uttaranchal, the two other passes through which border trade was being conducted with China.

Both Mr Denzogpa and Mr Sarda hoped that the volume of trade through Nathu la would rise in the coming years after the trade was converted to free trade and good infrastructure like road, electricity, testing centre, packaging units developed , bottlenecks removed and the items listed for trade revised.

Now 29 items figures in the export list and 15 in the import list of the trade. Mr Sarda said the volume of trade alone on silk could rise to Rs 100 crore if the mechanism for grading silk was set up at Nathu la instead of sending them to Bangalore as the practise is now.

The Commerce Secretary criticised those businessmen who demanded full scale revision of trade list and said the trade through the route was far below expectation and disappointing. Mr Denzogpa said the border trade was meant for the people living close to the border and the volume would be naturally small. By this standard the volume of trade generated through the Nathu la pass was very good.

He said the demands of the traders were premature as those who were demanding revision of list and full scale trading were themselves not ready. He alleged that they had not yet prepared a list of items they wanted to trade in.

Mr Denzogpa said the trade would pick up after the right kind of infrastrcture developed. He said the broadening of roads in Indian side were expected to be completed by 2011 and on the Chinese side by 2007.

However, he said there was no need for the businessmen to be disappinted as the state government had planned to review all aspects of the trade and suggest the Centre to initiate steps to resolve the problems if any.

He said the state government had already written to the centre to revise the list and include agro based products and liquor in the export list and conduct exposure trips of businessmen to help them to assess the Chinese market.

The union government was seized of the matter and a decision is likely to take place before the next trading season.

Reacting to a top Chinese officials remark that the Indian authorities were creating 'unnecessary restriction' on items of trade and the volume of trade was below expectation, Mr Denzogpa said ''the Chinese actually wanted to push all items they produce where as we stick to the items listed for trade.'' However, the issues would be solved by Indian and Chinese governments and ''we do not have any role to play'', he said.

UNI