China 'conscious' of trade imbalance, Wen Jiabao tells Manmohan Singh

Amid India's concerns over trade imbalance in favour of China, Premier Wen Jiabao today assured Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the issue will be addressed as the two sides expressed confidence about achieving the bilateral trade target of $60 billion by this year-end.

During their meeting in Hanoi, Wen told Singh that China is "conscious" of the trade imbalance and needed to "do something," national security adviser Shivshankar Menon told reporters.

Wen outlined some of the steps that the Chinese government has taken to address this issue, Menon said.

The NSA said there is some reduction in trade imbalance "but still imbalance is still there and we will continue to work on this issue."

India had earlier raised the issue with China during the joint economic group meeting a few months back in view of lack of access to Indian services and various goods like pharmaceuticals and had been pushing it to facilitate better movement.

The bilateral trade, which has touched $45 billion, is in favour of China to the tune of about $15 billion.

Reviewing the growth of bilateral trade, Singh and Wen said the two countries were on track to achieve the target of $60 billion by 2010 as set in 2008, as commerce has already reached $45 billion in the first nine months of this year.

Both leaders stressed the importance of good India-China relations and resolved to work towards that goal "as we have done over several years in the past," Menon said.