India asks China to remove trade barriers

India's export basket is not representative (to China) of our competence in a number of areas, for example engineering products, pharmaceuticals, machineries, CII Vice-President B Muthuraman, who is also the Managing Director of Tata Steel, said while addressing the India Business Forum here today.

"There is, therefore, need to make India's basket fairly representative of its potential and competitiveness. Indian industry would like to seek across to China's domestic market products. The non-tariff barriers need to reviewed and eliminated. It would also help in reducing India's deficit in trade with China," he said.

A total of 360 Chinese businesspersons, industrialists and officials from all over China attended the meeting, which was the culmination of about 16 such meetings held all over China for the past few months to push brand India into China.

Muthuraman said that Indian companies would like to invest in China in sectors like pharmaceuticals, machineries and engineering products to tap huge Chinese domestic market and for export to other countries.

"Indian companies have not yet been able to achieve significant growth in China as we feel they have not been provided access to the market. We therefore seek improved access to Chinese domestic market in services sector such as IT, ITES, health care, media and entertainment and education," he said.

Indian Ambassador to China, S Jaishankar, who has been conducting various business get-together in several parts of China to bring about India product, said our economic relationship has actually been the game changer in bilateral ties, particularly in the last decade.

He said both China and India have agreed during this year's Inter-governmental Joint Economic Group that that it was in the interest of China that large trade imbalances should be avoided.

"We were assured that greater efforts would be made to increase imports from India. But this will not happen automatically. Indian industry must show greater commitment and marketing activity even as the Chinese one displays more openness and offers better access."

Riva Ganguly Das, Consul General of India in Shanghai said Shanghai has emerged as important hub as it serviced 35 per cent of overall bilateral trade between the two countries.

The India-China bilateral trade has already crossed USD 30 billion and set touch record USD 60 billion target set for this year.

Reaching the bilateral trade target of USD 60 billion in a year when both countries are celebrating 60 years of establishment of diplomatic relations, will serve as benchmark for the businesses of the two countries to push forward the current economic momentum, K Nagaraj Naidu, First Secretary of the Indian Embassy in Beijing said.