In the evening, both leaders will see cultural performances at the Shore temple followed by a dinner.
With heavy security, a freshly painted wall, and banana tree-lined roads, the tourist town of Mamallapuram, a suburb of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, is all set to host Asia's two important leaders -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping for the second informal summit. The first summit took place in Wuhan, China and focus in this year's summit will be to keep the momentum that was generated from last year's summit.
Friday afternoon will see President Xi reaching Chennai at around 2 PM local time and by 5 PM, Modi will give him a guided tour of the three important UNESCO world heritage sites - Arjuna’s Penance, Panch Rathas and Shore Temple. The Chinese President will then be driving down to the suburb from Chennai and will soon be joined by Prime Minister Modi. The fact that Mamallapuram hosts world heritage sites coupled with its coastal links with China dating back to 6th century Pallava dynasty played a key role in it hosting the summit.
In the evening, both leaders will see cultural performances at the Shore temple followed by a dinner. Saturday, both will meet again and after the lunch, President Xi leaves for Nepal, the first visit by a Chinese President in decades.
Since it's an informal summit, no joint statement is expected but both sides will issue separate statements in a coordinated manner. The trade deficit stands at 57.86 billion dollars and while greater market access has been given to Indian agriculture products like rapeseed, fishmeal, tobacco leaves, chilli meal, India is hoping it is translated into volumes.
On the issue of the border dispute, both sides are expected to start working on new confidence-building measures that could be announced later this year. One of the key outcomes of the Wuhan informal summit that happened in the backdrop of 2017 Doklam crisis, was strategic guidance being given by both leaders to their armies to resolve any issue at the Line of Actual Control or LaC in a sensible manner.
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