'India-China ties need to focus on investment'

The India-China economic engagement needs to shift focus from trade relationships to investment, because only increased investments can address the existing trade imbalance between the two neighbours, said Ficci Secretary-General Didar Singh said at the Deccan Herald national conference here on Saturday.

“Our trade with China is doing fine. There are some imbalances in the bilateral trade, but in the global context that does not mean much. The real important question is how open we are about our investments,” said Singh.

India-China trade totalled $65.50 billion last year, but the trade surplus was heavily tilted in China’s favour.

Participating in a discussion on “India, the US and China: Emerging Economic Dynamics”, Singh said Indo-US trade was on a strong footing, and the area where India would continue to benefit from trade with the US was defence manufacturing and technology.

Elaborating further on Indo-China investment relations, he recalled that during his recent visit, the single most important signal Chinese President Xi Jinping gave was about how big the Chinese investment could be in India.

During the September visit, China committed $20 billion investment in India's infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in the next five years.