Prez seeks balanced trade with China

China on Wednesday nudged India to stop opposing its “One-Belt-One-Road” (OBOR) initiative, even as President Pranab Mukherjee stressed on narrowing the imbalance in bilateral commerce.

Speaking at an India-China business forum in Guangzhou, Mukherjee noted that while the bilateral commerce had grown from $2.91 billion in 2000 to $71 billion in 2015, the trade balance continued to be in favour of the communist country. “We look forward to expanding our commerce to make it more equitable,” said President, who is currently on a tour to China.

Zhu Xiaodan, Governor of Guangdong province in south China, also addressed the meet and used the opportunity to prod New Delhi once again to support Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One-Belt-One-Road” initiative.

Xi has since 2013 been articulating the idea of a “21st century Maritime Silk Road” reviving economic connectivity between the Pacific and Indian Oceans and linking China’s coastline with Southeast Asia, the Gulf and the eastern coast of Africa. He has also been proposing a “Silk Road Economic Belt” reviving the ancient link between China and Mediterranean through Central Asia. The two projects are now together called OBOR initiative.

Beijing’s new plan to spread its tentacles further in Indian Ocean region and Central Asia, however, caused unease in New Delhi, which has already been wary of China’s strategic assets encircling India.

India also opposes the OBOR, because it includes proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which would pass through areas New Delhi claims as its own and accuses Islamabad of illegally occupying in Kashmir.

New Delhi maintains that India could join multilateral connectivity initiatives in Asia, only if they were pursued through a consultative process.

But both Zhu as well as Jiang Zengwei, chairman of China Council for Promotion of International Trade, on Wednesday emphasized on New Delhi’s cooperation with Beijing on OBOR to boost bilateral commerce and narrow trade deficit.

India’s trade deficit with China stood at $52.67 billion in 2015. Mukherjee avoided any reference to OBOR in his speech on Wednesday. “India would like to see a greater market for our products in China – particularly in sectors where we have natural complementarities – as in the areas of drugs and pharmaceuticals, IT (Information Technology) and IT-enabled services and agro products,” said the President.

He called upon Chinese investments and entrepreneurs to take part in “Make in India” and other flagship initiatives by the government in New Delhi. He noted that Chinese companies made “a good start” by investing in infrastructure projects and industrial parks in India – a move that could help narrow the trade imbalance. During Xi’s visit to New Delhi in September 2014; China pledged to make $20 billion investment in India by 2019.

Chinese companies invested around $870 million in India in 2015 – six times more than that in 2014, China’s state-run newspaper Global Times reported.

Speaking at the business forum in Guangzhou, Naushad D Forbes, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, however, supported the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative of China.