‘Top-level mechanism to be set up to iron out bilateral trade issues’

Mahabalipuram: India and China will set up a top level mechanism to sort out the concerns pertaining to the bilateral trade issues, said Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale.

He also said official level actions will be taken in both the countries in less than a year to fructify the decisions taken at the two informal India-China Summits held till now.

He was briefing the media on the decisions taken at the Second Informal India-China meet held here and also at a beach resort near here between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Queried about the decisions taken on the bilateral trade between the two nations and the trade deficit hugely tilted against India, Gokhale said Xi remarked his country is ready to take forward the issue of reducing the trade deficit.

Gokhale said the two leaders have decided to set up a new elevated mechanism represented by Indian Finance Minister and the Chinese Vice Premier as members to discuss on how to reduce the trade deficit, improving bilateral investments and manufacturing.

The bilateral trade between India and China is about $87 billion.

According to Gokhale, the Chinese President had told Modi that his country invites Indian investments in pharmaceutical and information technology sectors.

Xi also assured Modi that India’s concern on trade issues will be taken into account.

Gokhale said the issue of Kashmir was not discussed by Modi and Xi during their discussions and India is clear that it is an internal affair.

The Foreign Secretary also said the two leaders agreed that radicalization is of mutual concern.

On the timeframe for the officials of the both the nations to actualise the decisions taken at the informal summit Gokhale said it will be done in less than a year.

He said Xi was satisfied with the results of such informal summits and had invited Modi to China for the third one.

Modi has accepted the invitation and the dates for the same will have be finalised.

During his meeting with Xi, Modi had spoken about increasing the flow of tourists between India and China.

Modi also spoke about increasing people-to-people relations between the two nations apart from increasing the flow of tourists.

Modi and Xi also agreed to take measures on improving the mutual trust between the militaries of the two nations.

In this connection, an invitation to Indian Defence Minister to visit China was extended by Xi.

As a mark of celebration of the 70 years of bilateral relations, 70 events will be held — 35 each in each country.

On the link between Tamil Nadu and China, Modi had suggested for carrying out a research on the subject.

Gokhale said there were some discussions on regional and international issues.

Updated on: Oct 12, 2019 at 15:59 IST

IANS