India, China target $100 billion trade.

The first India-China CEOs forum, held on Monday during the ongoing official visit of the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. has decided to enhance bilateral trade between India and China to $100 billion by 2015 from the present level of  $67 billion.

CEOs of 20 large Indian companies led by Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group chairman Anil Ambani and their Chinese counterparts resolved to expand the scope for trade, eliminate the existing trade and investment barriers to promote balanced trade and jointly oppose trade protectionism to create a conducive investment environment.

Presiding over the Forum, Anil Ambani, Forum Chairman on the Indian side, urged the forum members to identify five issues both at the policy and sectoral levels so that these could be sorted out before the next meeting of the Forum next year.

He urged both sides to expand the Rupee-RMB-Dollar trade to reach the initial limit of $1 billion set by the RBI. He said the Re-RMB-$ trade limit was set in 2012 and “even as we speak, no trade under this mechanism has taken place.” He called upon the participants to seize the opportunity, use the new platform or business-to-business contracts to enhance trade cooperation.

Ambani said India companies would like to see more of equity funding by Chinese companies and added that in view of the large populations of the two countries and given China’s experience in providing life cover to its people, there was a need to get more Chinese firms in India’s insurance sector.

The Forum also urged that the governments on both sides to “make efforts to identify and work together to reduce the negative factors in cooperation and to assist the two governments to perfect a fair, reasonable, equal, transparent and rule-based bilateral trade and investment system.”

The Forum was sponsored by Ministry of Commerce, the People’s Republic of China and India’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry and organised by China International Council for the Promotion of Multinational Corporations and FICCI.

The two parties signed a ‘India-China Enterprises CEOs Forum Mechanism Joint Communiqué’, ‘India-China Enterprises CEOs Forum Mechanism’ and ‘Memorandum of Cooperation Between FICCI and China International Council for the Promotion of Multinational Corporations (CICPMC)’. The two parties agreed to hold the ‘Second India-China Enterprises CEOs Forum’ in China in 2014.

Emphasising the need for cooperation in the media and entertainment sector, Ambani recommended filming of movies in each other’s country, a move that will trigger travel and tourism on both sides.

He also called for opportunities for learning the Chinese language in schools and colleges and urged Chinese universities to market themselves in India just the way US, European and Australian universities do.

Hu Huaibang, the Forum chairman on the Chinese part and president of China Development Bank, said that the goal of attaining bilateral trade volume of $100 billion by 2015 was feasible if enterprises of the two nations engage constructively with each other.

India, he said, had set a target of achieving 8%  growth during its 12th Plan period and proposes to build its physical infrastructure by investing $1.2 trillion in the five-year period.


Source : newindianexpress.com