India concerned about widening trade deficit with China

The Commerce Ministry here has expressed its concern over the widening trade deficit with China, and warned that this won't be sustainable in the long term.

This view was conveyed, when representatives of both countries met on Monday to explore greater business opportunities between the countries.

The India-China Business Matchmaking Symposium in New Delhi was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Trade Development Bureau (TDB) of China, in the backdrop of exponential growth in the trade sector between the two countries in the last few years.

Joint Secretary of the Commerce Ministry Asit Tripathy said that India's engineering goods, petroleum downstream products, agriculture based commodities and pharmaceuticals along with other services were internationally competitive and should be made available in the Chinese markets as well.

He added that the countries needed to collaborate to bring evenness in the trade between the two countries.

"What is worrying (indications) to government of India and to the Indian industry is that we have a very large trade deficit. So, we need to collaborate with each other so that we have evenness to our trade, because in uneven trade like this is not sustainable in the long run," said Tripathy.

The Chinese business delegation headed by Vice Director General of Chinese Trade Development Bureau (TDB) Jia Guoyong consisted of delegates from various sectors of business and trade.

While addressing the delegates, Chairman of CII National MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) Council, Deep Kapuria said that the countries were taking steps to cope with increasing trade imbalance.

He added that the Indian industries should benefit from this collaboration.

"Now, it is at the end of the Indian businesses to look at how they can take this opportunity forward (and) engage with the companies not only today but with the help of the Chinese embassy (and) with CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) having their office in Shanghai in the future, and participating in the delegation to move this business relationship forward," said Kapuria.

In the meet, the delegations of the both countries also signed 15 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) worth USD 338 million, in wide range of sectors.

Following Indian complaints about the size of the trade deficit with its neighbour, earlier in May this year, China's Premier Li Keqiang had said that China and India had agreed on a roadmap to reach a "dynamic balance" in bilateral trade between the two nations.