INDIA, CHINA SHOULD SUPPORT EACH OTHER IN WTO, SAYS CHINESE MINISTER
OF COMMERCE
JAITLEY DISCUSSES COOPERATION IN WTO
WITH CHINESE MINISTER
The Chinese Minister
of Commerce, Mr. Lu Fuyuan, has said that India and China share
many common interests in the new (Doha) Round of talks of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the two should support each
other in the WTO and work for the interests of developing countries.
According to the Xinhua Chinese News Agency, Mr. Lu said this
during a meeting with the Indian Commerce & Industry Minister,
Shri Arun Jaitley, who suggested that the two sides should exchange
views frequently and make joint efforts to safeguard interests
of the developing countries. "The Indian minister said India and
China, as two important developing members of the World Trade
Organisation, shared many similarities and could cooperate well
on many issues", Xinhua says.
India and China should
work together to double their bilateral trade volume to 10 billion
US dollars by 2005, Mr. Lu further said at his meeting in Beijing
today with Shri Jaitley. As the two most populous and largest
developing countries, Mr. Lu said, China and India have great
potential to expand their trade and economic cooperation.
India and India signed
a number of agreements of cooperation this week as the Prime Minister,
Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee was visiting China.
"Those documents
will greatly push forward bilateral trade and economic cooperation
between our countries," Lu said. "We should, in accordance with
the consensus reached between Indian prime minister and Chinese
premier, make plans on the development of trade and economic cooperation",
the Xinhua report says.
Mr. Lu said any proposal
from India would have the active support of China so long as it
was conducive to the expansion of trade and economic cooperation.
Two-way trade between China and India reached 4.95 billion US
dollars last year, up 37.6 percent from a year ago. From January
to May this year, bilateral trade grew 70 percent to 2.9 billion
US dollars. Shri Jaitley proposed the joint economic group between
India and China should hold meetings as soon as possible to explore
ways of boosting trade and cooperation, according to the Xinhua
report.
