ICAC Welcomes Indo-China Joint Statement

In a statement issued today, Mr. Piyush Bahl, CEO, India China Alliance Centre (ICAC) and former Head, CII's East Asia Office in Shanghai, has welcomed the joint statement issued by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao.

 While ICAC is convinced that the target of Sino-Indian bi-lateral trade to the extent of 60 billion US$ is easily achievable by 2010 or even earlier, it foresees India's trade deficit with China rising upto 20 billion US$ specially in view of the fact that the Chinese currency- RMB (Yuan)-is under evaluated which gives a major edge to the Chinese exporters to remain competitive in the international market place. The Centre has expressed grave concern over these figures as it does not foresee that India would be in a position to rapidly diversify its export trade basket.

While China truly welcomes FDI from across the World, India has had reservations regarding Chinese investments in India . ICAC hopes that the statement issued by the Indian Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath that India has no China specific concerns over Chinese investments in India will be followed in letter and spirit at the implementation level as it is "Investment" alone and not "Trade" that could bring economic density in the overall relationship of the two Asian giants.