China should remove non tariff trade barriers that affect trade: Tharoor

Asserting that China has a huge advantage of over 30 billion dollar in the trade balance, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday urged Beijing to remove the non tariff trade barriers as well as some of the tariffs that affect trade.

Commenting on Chinese President Xi Jingpin's visit to India later this week, Tharoor said, "Though our trade has been booming with China, which has gone up to 70 billion dollars a year, the terms of trade have been unfavorable to India as China has a huge advantage of over 30 billion dollar in the trade balance. One way in which China can compensate for it is by removing the non tariff trade barriers as well as some of the tariffs that affect our trade with them."

"Another thing that they could do is to invest in India showing that they are committed to India's development and not only to sell us their goods cheaply," he added.

Tharoor further said, "President Xi Jingpin is coming with a very high level business delegation. It seems that he is bringing the heads of many major Chinese companies looking at the investment opportunities. The advanced indications are perhaps that investments up to 100 billion Dollars including 50 billion dollars in the railways sector are expected to come India's way.