Chinese and Indian officials have made progress in joint
research on the feasibility of initiating a regional trade
arrangement, China's Ministry of Commerce announced on
Thursday.
The two sides met in Beijing for a two-day consultation, which
ended on Wednesday, and reached a basic agreement on cargo and
service trade, investment as well as trade and investment
facilitating measures, said ministry spokesman Wang Xinpei.
The consultation was the fifth of its kind since March 2006, and
the two countries planned to conclude the research at the sixth
consultation meeting to be held in New Delhi by October, Wang
said.
The two sides would then decide whether to start free trade
agreement (FTA) negotiations.
The first four months had seen trade between China and India
surge by 56.8 percent year-on-year, the highest among all the major
trade partners of the world's fourth largest economy, to 11.4
billion US dollars, according to Chinese customs statistics.
The joint feasibility research was initiated in April 2005 by
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh. New Delhi has hosted the consultations twice and Beijing
three times.
Pakistan, another rapidly developing South Asian country whose
economy is enjoying an annual growth of between six and eight
percent, reached a free trade agreement with China on Nov. 24,
2006.
China has learned the importance of regional free trade
agreements. During the first three years after the North American
Free Trade Agreement was signed by the United States, Canada and
Mexico in 1994, Mexico saw its exports of men's shirts to the
United States soar by 122.9 percent while those of China declined
by 38.1 percent.
"If you are not part of regional trade arrangements, you stand
to lose," Vice Minister of Commerce Yi Xiaozhun said.
China is in talks with 28 countries and regions on regional
trade arrangements and has already clinched an FTA with Chile and a
cargo trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).
(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2007)
