‘First time, India’s trade deficit with China shrunk’

In an interview to HT, Union commerce Minister Shri Suresh Prabhu revealed that under Modi government the trade deficit with China went down. He said in the interview “ For the first time, the trade deficit with China has gone down.” He added “ In March 2018, soon after I became the commerce minister, I invited China’s senior-most political leader, one of the top five, he’s the commerce minister also. I told him we would like to balance the trade with China, not only reduce the trade deficit. So we are working on the strategy.

This year, we exported rice for the first time in 20 years. We exported rapeseed, we are negotiating on soyabean, sugar and pharmaceuticals. We are going to make a concrete proposal as to how to balance trade, increasing export to China, bringing more of manufacturing of China’s products in India, so automatically that would mean India’s share of manufacturing will increase, job creation will happen, and imports from China will go down.” He claimed that India government is changing its engagement with China on the economic level.