Thaindian News

Sanya (China), April 13 (IANS) India and China Wednesday said they were poised to enhance bilateral commerce to $100 billion by 2015, but concerns remain on trade imbalance in favour of Beijing.

To reduce the deficit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked more market access to Indian pharmaceuticals, IT and farm goods during his “very productive warm, friendly meeting” with Chinese President Hu Jintao, said National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon.

Manmohan Singh met Hu for about 50 minutes at Sheraton Beach Resort on the sidelines of the 3rd BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit that takes place here Thursday.

The two leaders “reviewed the economic and trade relationship and expressed confidence that we are well on our way to achieve the target of $100 billion of two-way trade by 2015 the leaders had set last year”, Menon told reporters.

Menon, who was part of the Indian team, said the prime minister did mention about the trade imbalance that rose to $20 billion in the overall bilateral commerce of nearly $60 billion in 2010.

In 2009, this totalled about $16 billion.

“The Chinese side said they took the issue very seriously. There was a series of measures, which have been agreed,” he said. He added that China had agreed to increase imports from India.

“Manmohan Singh mentioned pharma, IT and agriculture as areas which would conceivably help to reduce the imbalance, if there was more access. It was not disputed (by the Chinese side). In fact, President Hu said this was an issue that concerns them and they look forward to finding solution,” Menon said.

Menon, however, was of the view that recent two-way trade figures of the two countries had shown a trend favourable for India.

“I think in the first few months of this year Indian exports to China have grown much faster that Indian imports from China. Both have grown but Indian exports in China have grown faster,” he said.

“This is an issue that both sides are very aware of, very concerned about and they are really trying to address that.”

The Manmohan-Hu meeting, also attended by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Indian ambassador to China S. Jaishankar, comes after a BRICS trade ministers met here to discuss economic issues.

China was asked at that meeting by the other four BRICS members to buy more of their value added products, with a particular reference to Indian pharmaceuticals.

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming promised his country would make it “a priority to import more value added products” from BRICS nations, Sharma told reporters briefly after the close-door meeting at a beachside resort.

Brazil and India have also complained that the Chinese currency yuan was undervalued and therefore undermines their exports.

Manmohan Singh arrived here Tuesday at the start of a five-day visit that will also take him to Kazakhstan.

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)