Pranab Mukherjee to visit China on May 24

President Pranab Mukherjee will visit China from May 24 to 27 during which he will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and attend Sino-India Business meet in the industrial city of Guangzhou.
Mukherjee, the first president to visit China after his predecessor Pratibha Patil's trip in 2010, will first arrive in the highly industrialised Chinese city which has strong business links with India.
Besides interacting with the Indian community, which has over 3,000 businessmen, he will addressIndia-China business event to highlight the investment opportunities in India.
A number of Indian and Chinese businessmen were expected to take part in the event, official sources said.

Later, he will arrive in Beijing on May 25 and hold talks with Xi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and address a gathering for which details are being worked out.
Mukherjee's visit would set off a series of high-level visits between the two countries as they seeks to deepen their engagements despite irritants in ties over issues like Beijing blocking India's bid to get a United Nations ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar.

The visit was announced by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval when he called on Chinese Premier Li here on April 21 after taking part in the 19th round of boundary talks.

Mukherjee's visit, which was a reciprocal visit of President Xi to India in 2014, will be followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to the Chinese city of Hangzhou to attend the G-20 summit on September 4 and 5.
Xi himself was expected to travel to India to take part in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) summit scheduled to be held in Goa on October 15-16.
Modi made a high-profile visit to China last year.
The high-level visits make 2016 a unique year, officials said as they help widen the contacts between the two nations.
This itself is a progress in India-China contest, an official said.

Such contacts were expected to help iron out irritants like China's attempts to block India's bid to ban Azhar in UN.
China has put a technical hold on the India's move setting off strong reactions from New Delhi.