China to boost investment in India
May 21, 2013, 9:28 am

Chinese premier Li Keqiang (left) and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh [Xinhua]

Addressing the Indian industry at a function organised by FICCI in Delhi, the Chinese premier said cooperation between the two neighbours will lead to a “new paradigm” of cooperation.

“As for Indian concerns over the trade deficit, the Chinese side is willing to provide facilitations for more Indian products to access the Chinese market,” Li said

On India-China trade relations, Mr Li said it is imperative for the two countries to maintain a “dynamic trade balance”.

“India and China are huge markets with huge potentials…we will support Chinese enterprises to increase investments in India and help Indian products have access to Chinese market,” he said.

China’s direct investment in India has increased seventeen fold from 2006 to 2011.

While striving to realise the trade turnover target of $100 billion by 2015, the two countries agreed to take measures to address the issue of trade imbalance.

These include cooperation on pharmaceutical supervision, including registration, stronger links between Chinese enterprises and Indian IT industry, the joint statement said.

Invoking ancient relations between the two, he said, “We will be able to take the bilateral relations to new heights. We have launched a new agenda…taking India-China relations to a new starting point for further growth,” he said.

“We are one-third of world’s total population and our interactions attract the world. Without doubt, China-India relations are most important global relations,” he said.

Li declared 2014 as the year of exchanges between the two nations “so as to boost our understanding and friendship”.

Fan He, a leading economist with China’s ministry of finance says that China and India can scale great heights if they cooperate on IT and healthcare.

“If China is called the ‘world factory’, India is the ‘world office’. India has upgraded its very dynamic service sector, especially in the IT industry, significantly since the year 2000,” Fan wrote for The BRICS Post.

“IT and healthcare are among the priorities of the reform agenda for the new Chinese administration. It will be quite amazing to see what kind of cooperation China and India can clinch on these areas,” he added.

The BRICS Post