The annual border trade at Nathu La on the Sino-Indian frontier has failed to evoke interest among Indian traders this year as reflected in the low volume of business at about Rs 700,000 in the first five weeks since the opening of the bilateral trade on May 19.

Not only has the volume of bilateral trade been poor at Nathu La, but an apparent lack of interest among Indian traders to participate in the annual trade has been a cause of concern, official sources said.

While the value of traded goods on both sides has been much below expectation at about Rs 700,000, Indian traders have also shown reluctance to visit the Renquingang Mart in the Tibet Autonomous Region to sell their products citing non-profitability of the business, the sources said.

The number of Indian traders visiting the Renquingang Mart in TAR on a daily basis has been seven at the most, while on some other days a mere one to two, they said.

In an alarming indication that the annual border trade has become unviable for Indian traders due to the non-revision of the trade list by the Centre, a good number of traders who had participated in the annual trade in the past have not bothered to obtain the mandatory pass from the district authorities this year, the sources said.                                    

The Indo-Chinese Traders Association of Sikkim Vice-President, D D Mundhra, admitted that he has not obtained the trade pass this year as the border trade did not make sense in terms of profitability so long as the Centre failed to revise and upgrade the list of items for export from India.

"Most of the goods in the present 29 items in the export list from India are obsolete and outdated with the traders from TAR not seeking import of these products, barring rice, tea and utensils," he said.

While, the revision of the trade list should be taken up on a priority basis by the Centre to boost the bilateral trade at Nathu La, the present norm that the imported products from TAR be sold in Sikkim only should also be relaxed so that Indian traders could import Chinese goods in bulk for sale throughout the country, Mundhra said.

The relaxation in the restriction on sale of the imported goods throughout the country would enable the traders to make some profit which, otherwise was not possible given the small size of the population of the Himalayan state, the ICTAS vice-president said.