Sitharaman may talk trade gap with China counterpart

On her first visit abroad as the commerce and industry minister, Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to meet her Chinese counterpart Gao Hucheng on Friday and discuss bilateral issues from obtaining more access to Chinese markets and declining exports to the establishment of industrial parks in India.

A commerce department source said, "There is high possibility both will discuss the issues."

Sitharaman, accompanying Vice-President Hamid Ansari to China, is expected to seek investments into the parks, to come soon in India.

The Cabinet had approved the establishment of Chinese parks in some states on Wednesday. Officials said a memorandum of understanding may be signed during the visit.

India is going to raise again the issue of gaining more access to the Chinese information technology (IT) and pharmaceuticals sectors. While India has been able to make some inroads into the IT market, entering the pharmaceuticals one is proving tough as it is dominated by traditional medicines.

There are chances both may discuss the pending issue of relaxing the visa regime for the businessmen of both. Both may take stock of the progress on the proposed Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar corridor.

Trade between both has grown a lot during the last few years. While imports from China are rising, exports to the market are declining.

Bilateral trade has gone up from $2.09 billion in 2001-02 to $75.59 billion in 2011-12. It came to $67.83 billion in 2012-13. India's trade gap increased from $1.08 billion in 2001-02 to $40.77 billion in 2012-13, despite a contraction of the total trade by 10.27 per cent.

Officials said India was relying a lot on parks to reduce trade gap.

According to official statistics, China ranks 28th among countries contributing foreign direct investment (FDI) to India. Total FDI from China from April 2000-April 2014 was $406.64 million.

The plan to set up parks, similar to the Korean and Japanese ones, was mooted by the previous United Progressive Alliance government. Former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid had suggested the concept during his visit to Beijing in May last year. The Chinese government is learnt to have approached the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation and the UP State Industrial Development Corporation to set up parks.

WHAT TOPS INDIA'S AGENDA

• Minister expected to seek large-scale investments from China into industrial parks coming here
• Both may discuss the issue of relaxing the visa regime for businessmen
• They might take stock of the progress of the proposed Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar corridor