The Hindu : Quality of ties with China has changed, says Vajpayee

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 25, 2003

International

International - India & World

Quality of ties with China has changed, says Vajpayee

By Amit Baruah

BEIJING June 24. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, said today that developing "all-round" bilateral cooperation with China while simultaneously addressing differences had transformed the quality of the bilateral relationship.

Addressing a seminar organised by the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, the CII and the FICCI, he said: "This has helped to further narrow our differences and to accelerate our cooperation." "Of course, we have much further to go to realise the full potential of our partnership. We have, first and foremost, to bridge the information gap between the two countries... this would help to diversify our trade basket."

According to the Prime Minister, his visit to Beijing had been an eye-opener. "On this visit, I have been in Beijing now for just a day. But wherever I have been in the city, I saw the pace of economic change and could sense the urgency of the modernisation drive."

Mr. Vajpayee said that his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, and he had decided on Monday to form a "joint study group" of economists and officials to identify new areas of promise and draw up a comprehensive perspective plan for further economic interaction.

"For a rapid expansion of our economic interactions, it is very important to strengthen passenger and cargo transportation links, banking support structures and trade facilitation measures. While governments on both sides can work to address these infrastructural problems, it is for private business and industry to optimise their utilisation."

Paying tributes to China's economic growth, he pointed to the plan to quadruple GDP by 2020. "Judging by your past performance, I have no reason to doubt that you will also achieve this extraordinary target. China is today the world's fastest growing economy and is the second largest in purchasing power parity. While our expansion and growth rates have lagged behind China, the Indian economy has made impressive strides in the last decade or so. In the last 12 years, we have recorded an average annual growth rate of nearly six per cent."

The twin objectives of his visit to China were: to establish close relations with the new leadership here and impart a fresh momentum to the comprehensive cooperation which India and China are in the process of building.

"I must say with great satisfaction that my meetings with the leadership of China have been excellent. They have confirmed that the desire to build stable, enduring and forward-looking ties of friendship is shared by the highest political levels in both countries," he said. "Our bilateral trade has been growing rapidly. Though it is from a relatively narrow base, the recent annual growth rate of 30 per cent in our bilateral trade is quite significant. In the first four months of this year, bilateral trade registered an astonishing growth of about 70 per cent. China now accounts for about four per cent of our bilateral trade."

In his speech, the Chinese Commerce Minister, Lu Fuayuan, said there had been frequent exchanges of high-level visits between the two countries in the last few years. These had opened a new chapter in the bilateral relationship. From a strategic perspective, the two countries needed to accelerate trade in both "width and depth". China, Mr. Lu said, wanted to build good relations with all countries in its neighbourhood. In the case of India and China, commonalities outweighed their differences.

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