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China Commodities Fair Opens in India
A four-day China Engineering and Commodities Fair opened in New Delhi Wednesday, December 6, with Indian Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah saying China has a very specific and significant role to play in the coming Asian Era.
More than 300 Chinese businessmen, manufacturers and entrepreneurs representing around 100 companies and corporations are participating in the fair, the first of its kind held in this South Asian country since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries 50 years ago.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Abdullah said the Indian industry looks up to the Chinese industry as its mentor since China started adopting the open-door trade policies almost 13 years ago, prior to the liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991.
There has been a rapid expansion of economic and trade ties between the two countries with bilateral trade volume reaching a record 1.988 billion U.S. dollars last year, thus underlining the existence of great complementarity and potential in the Indo-China trade and economic cooperation, the minister added.
Also present at the ceremony were Wu Xilin, head of the Chinese delegation and deputy director of economic cooperation under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of China; Zhou Gang, Chinese ambassador to India; and officials of the Confederation of Indian Industry and other organizations and corporations.
The fair, which will be closed on Saturday, shows the advanced level and strengths of China in the fields of engineering construction as well as products representing the latest economic and technological development in China in the sectors of machinery, equipment, minerals, chemical products, telecommunication and electronics.
According to official statistics, two decades after China began involving in engineering contracting of projects abroad in the late 1970s, Chinese companies' accumulated engineering contract volume of international projects had exceeded 82.2 billion dollars with a turnover of 58.6 billion dollars by the end of last August.
The fair is held in accordance with an agreement reached between the two governments in the Sixth Session of the China- India Joint Group on Economic Relations and Trade, Science and Technology in February this year.
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