India on Tuesday raised its concern over its large trade deficit with China while hailing some recent measures by the neighbouring country in this regard.

In a a bilateral meeting between Commerce Secretary,Anup Wadhawan and Vice Minister of China’s Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, the Indian official while expressing concern regarding the large trade deficit, acknowledged Chinese Government’s efforts in clearing some of the market access issues such as for rice and rapeseed meal during the past few months and expressed satisfaction over progress on soya bean meal and pomegranate and related issues.

He also informed Wang about the encouraging response to the business promotion events organized by the Indian Embassy and Consulates covering products like sugar, rice, tea and oil meals.

Wadhawan requested Wang to provide MOFCOM’s guidance to its importers to source these products from India.

The Commerce Secretary informed that areas like agriculture products, pharmaceuticals, information technology services and tourism in which India has proven strengths and significant global presence but minuscule presence in China, need to be encouraged in bilateral trade.

He asked for guidance, facilitation, support and assistance to the relevant stakeholders for creating a suitable environment for India’s exports in these sectors to China.

MOFCOM thanked India for accepting its invitation to participate in the 1st CIIE and assured all support for increasing India’s exports to China.

Recently India and China had a series of official level exchanges to discuss the bilateral trade issues.

After the successful Joint Economic Group meeting hosted by India’s Commerce Minister in March 2018 and attended by China’s Commerce Minister, both countries had two rounds of dialogues at the official level leading to resolution of some of the pending market access issues.

 During this visit, the Commerce Secretary also had a detailed discussion with important sugar importers of China including China Sugar Association and briefed them about India’s sugar sector and its proven available capacity in terms of both, quality as well as quantity, to meet the Chinese requirements on a sustained long term basis.

Important players from Indian sugar industry including MD, NFCSF also attended related meetings during the visit. These meetings would be helpful in tapping this major import market for Indian sugar.