PM Modi and President Xi had discussed ways to improve trade imbalance in May, last year.
The trade deficit between India and China has increased to $44.7 billion (nearly Rs 3.05 lakh crore) during the April-January period of 2015-16, the Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
In May last year, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China, he and President Xi Jinping had discussed, among other issues, ways to reduce the trade deficit between the two countries. The two ministers had discussed steps to improve the trade imbalance, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had said.
However, nothing seems to have been working so far, as the trade imbalance is already close to its last year's figure. In 2014-15, the deficit was aggregated at $48.48 billion (nearly Rs 3.28 lakh crore).
During the April-January period, India's exports to China stood at $7.56 billion (nearly Rs 51,604.56 crore) whereas the imports jumped to $52.26 billion (nearly Rs 3.54 lakh crore) during the same period.
India's concern about the rising deficit has been discussed with China at various fora, including the highest level of leadership of the two countries, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha in May last year.
"In order to boost exports and address the widening trade deficit with China...The government has taken a number of initiatives to identify specific product lines with export potential, actively taking up issues relating to tariff and non-tariff barriers in bilateral meetings and institutional dialogues," she had said.
The Commerce Ministries of both countries had signed a five-year development programme for economic and trade cooperation in September 2014 to lay down a medium-term roadmap for promoting a balanced and sustainable development of economic and trade relations between the two countries, Sitharaman has said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
The programme recognises "that the trade deficit with China is a matter of high concern for India", Sitharaman said.
"Against this backdrop and in the spirit of mutual benefit, India and China shall endeavour to strengthen cooperation and gradually achieve bilateral trade balance over the next five years," she said.
However, little seems to have changed despite the steps taken.
(With Agency Inputs)
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