Foreign and Military Affairs

Vice premier praises Sino-Indian trade ties

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-26 21:16

NEW DELHI - Visiting Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu Friday praised the fast growing Sino-Indian trade relations and called for further efforts by the two sides to expand such cooperation.

In a speech to Indian businessmen and Chinese entrepreneurs based in New Delhi, Hui said that Sino-Indian cooperation in economic and trade field has become a remarkably bright spot in bilateral ties, as bilateral trade rose from $2.9 billion to $51.8 billion from 2000 to 2008.

This made China India's second largest trade partner and India China's biggest trade partner in South Asia, he said.

Hui said that China has also built infrastructure projects in India worth $11.1 billion in the past few years and invested $260 million in India in the fields of telecom, software and pharmaceutical industry, while India has made $300 million of investment in China.

The vice premier said that as both China and India are experiencing fast growth, there exist a great potential and a wide and bright perspective for expanding bilateral cooperation and exchanges between the two countries.

"Such cooperation will benefit not only the two countries, but also the whole world," he said.

Hui also proposed that China and India increase strategic trust to push forward cooperation of bilateral benefit.

"The economies of China and India are mutually supplementary to a great extent. The two countries can take advantage of each other's technological strong points in IT, manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructure, energy saving and environment protection," he said.

Hui also promised that China will provide more export and investing opportunities for Indian enterprises, so that bilateral trade can develop in a more balanced way.

"China is working on expanding domestic consumption, this will also provide a lot of business opportunities for Indian and other foreign enterprises in China," he said.

Hui suggested that the two countries provide favorable conditions to help increase exchanges among their enterprises, create equal and transparent investment environment, and facilitate trade and investment processes.

He said that China and India can continue to join hands in multilateral cooperation to safeguard common interests.

This can be carried out though strengthening coordination and increasing dialogue on the issues of international financial crisis, reform of global economic management structure, pushing forward WTO Doha Round talks, as well as coping with global warming, he said.