Thursday, September 18, 2014: As China’s President Xi Jinping travels to Gujarat and New Delhi on Wednesday for the bi-lateral meeting with Narendra Modi, it offers a unique opportunity to change the picture of the relationship absolutely.
Relations between India and china have long been prickly. As against the general notion about the cheap Chinese consumer goods, the figures reveal that China has sold almost $30 billion of engineering goods and $43 billion worth of electronic and electrical equipment to India during last three years. India largely imports engineering goods, electronics and electrical equipment from the neighbour country.
This further proves that imports figures from China are alarming. The ministry of commerce has clubbed all this data of import under second largest product category, the head Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Machinery and Mechanical Appliances. One main reason for the gaping trade deficit is that a majority of China’s exports to India are manufactured goods while most of India’s exports to China are primary goods such as iron ore and other minerals.
According to the study done by a Mumbai-based research firm, Aranca, the largest imports are that of automated data processing (ADP) machines which marked it at almost $2 billion in 2013-14. Reports reveal that India has bought $6 billion worth of Chinese computers over last three years.
China is also a major contributor to India’s power sector; they supply huge range of products to the giant power producers of the country. BHEL, a PSU company which has monopoly in manufacturing power sector equipment in India is highly reliable on Chinese imports.
