Friendlier ties

English>>Foreign Affairs

Editor's Pick

(Global Times) 10:28, October 23, 2013

Email|Print|Comments

twitter

facebook

Sina Microblog

Five months after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to India, his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has embarked on a state visit to China.

The three-day visit by Singh, running from Tuesday through Thursday, marks the first time since 1954 that prime ministers from the world's two most populous nations have exchanged state visits in the same year.

While border issues continue to attract wide public attention, economic cooperation and ties between the two countries are seen as having greater importance. This is partly because China appears to be less likely than other emerging economies to be affected by potential side effects from the much-anticipated US pullback from its quantitative easing program.

Singh's China visit is expected to lead to progress in the construction of an economic corridor linking Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar, China News Service reported over the weekend, citing Sanjay Bhardwaj, assistant professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The economic corridor was proposed by an agreement reached between China and Pakistan during Li's first overseas tour as China's premier in May.

Strengthened trade and investment ties should be on the agenda for the bilateral talks as well, noted Bhardwaj.

More investment

Hopes are increasing that economic ties between the two countries will yield greater benefits, with a recent report claiming that India plans to boost investment.

The Indian prime minister will propose the establishment of a China business park in India that will offer preferential policies in areas such as taxation, in order to boost direct investment from China, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on October 14.

So far, there has not yet been any official confirmation that such a business park plan is under discussion.

A series of agreements on bilateral cooperation in various fields will be signed between the two countries during Singh's visit to China, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a news conference on Friday. But she did not give further details.

The business park proposal would definitely be a win-win move, Wu Zhaoli, an assistant research fellow at the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted by CRI Online as saying Friday.

There are also hopes that a new border pact that could offer enhanced peace and tranquility can be inked during the visit. This would bode well for Sino-Indian relations, and help facilitate economic cooperation between the two sides, Wu remarked.

China and India have a shared goal of expanding bilateral trade volume to $100 billion by 2015, expectations for which have been boosted by the two state visits this year.

"Both Prime Minister Singh and I believe that there are far more shared interests between China and India than the differences that we have. And both sides need to draw wisdom from our long history and learn from our respective vast experience," Premier Li told a media briefing during his visit to India in May, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

In 2012, bilateral trade hit $66.47 billion, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce.