PM's China visit crucial for bilateral trade

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's six-day visit to China commencing on Sunday will be especially significant for improving trade between the two countries, Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley has said.

Jaitley, who is a member of the delegation accompanying the prime minister, said, "There are a large number of trade issues, of cooperation, mutual trade and growth, which would be common to both, and certainly these are the ones, which will form the core of discussions."

Appearing on India Business Report on BBC's international 24-hour news and information channel, to be telecast on Sunday, Jaitley said: "It's clearly obvious that China and India are the two galloping economies of the world."

Asked whether the intense competition between the two nations might actually have an adverse impact on trade-related growth, Jaitley said: "I don't think there is diversity between competitiveness and cooperation. Even competitors who trade with each other, trade into each other's territories, have to cooperate at a certain level, in order to make sure that trade itself expands in volumes."

"Mutual trade between the two countries is rapidly expanding and the expansion is manifest from China's trade into India, in 2003, which grew by about 39 per cent. India's trade into China grew by about 96 per cent. That only shows the volume of trade, and the kind of potential, which the two have," a BBC World press release quoted Jaitley as saying.

"Now this is competitiveness, at the same time the ground rules also require a tremendous amount of trade cooperation," he added.

Acknowledging that differences do exist between India and China, Jaitley hoped that Vajpayee's visit would resolve them.

"I'm sure one of the objects of a visit of this kind is to thrash out all pending issues either side may raise so that our cooperation parameters increase. When you speak in terms of trade with each other and investments into each other's territories, issues like anti-dumping do arise. And I am sure either side would be raising them."