As Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh faces flak back home for his support to boosting trade with Beijing, the Chinese media has come out in his favour pressing for removal of "needless restrictions" on country's investment in India.
The phone conversation between Jaishankar and Blinken came days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov paid a two-day visit to India.
Spurred by over 30 per cent jump in India's trade with China, the bilateral exports and imports are expected to touch $10 billion mark soon, Maharashtra Governor Mohamad Fazal said on Thursday.
India and Mexico have decided to explore the possibility of entering into a Preferential Trade Agreement to improve the bilateral trade, which stood at $1.6 billion at the end of 2006.
Trade volume between the two emerging economies shrank in 2012 as India's exports to China fell 16 per cent.
India should reform its trade policies further and reduce tariffs to boost trade with the United States, Secretary of State for Washington Sam Reed said on Monday.
US exports to India have quadrupled, while Indian exports to the US have grown by 180 per cent for the last three years, but despite this India was still only 13th largest trading partner for the US, Consul General of US Consulate, Chennai, Jennifer Macintyre, said in Coimbatore.
The ministry of external affairs also seemed to reject Trump's forceful comments that Washington brokered the understanding between India and Pakistan on ending their four-day military conflict.
Amid record bilateral trade, China and India have reached "consensus" on goods and services trade, investment and facilitation of investment and economic cooperation as part of their proposed Regional Trading Agreement (RTA).
At the PMO, policies are framed by factoring in analytical perspectives, implications, sustainability, and other dimensions.
In a statement, the Chinese ministry of commerce said that it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organisation against the US for its "wrongful practice," the Global Times reported.
The China-India bilateral trade in the first half of the year totalled $57.48 billion, up 62.7 per cent year on year, perhaps the highest in recent years amid the Ladakh impasse and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released by China's Customs. Though Indian exports to China picked up with 69.6 per cent year on year increase, the trade deficit, a structural problem for India for long, climbed to 55.6 per cent. According to data released by China's Customs, India's exports to China reached $14.724 billion, up 69.6 per cent year on year in the first six months and India's imports from China amounted to $42.755 billion, up 60.4 per cent.
Modi lived up to his declaration that his visit was purely meant to strengthen India's relationship with the US, but there may be situations in which our silence on some issues will haunt us in the future, cautions Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
The UK has strongly condemned a security breach involving a pro-Khalistan extremist rushing towards External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's convoy in London. The incident took place as Jaishankar was leaving the Chatham House think tank on Wednesday evening. The protester was swiftly taken aside by officers of the Metropolitan Police, with no arrests being confirmed so far. The UK said such attempts to "intimidate, threaten, or disrupt" public events are "completely unacceptable". The incident comes after Jaishankar's talks with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, during which both leaders covered the entire gamut of bilateral ties, including the relaunched Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, regional and global issues. The MEA has condemned the security breach and the provocative activities of the "small group of separatists and extremists", calling on the UK to "live up to their diplomatic obligations".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met his British counterpart Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the COP26 climate summit here and discussed ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in areas like green hydrogen, renewables and clean technology, economy and defence.
The 68-year-old influential Arab leader will grace the Republic Day celebrations on January 26. Sisi is accompanied by a high-level delegation.
The government on Tuesday approved the draft of India's free trade agreement with Japan, which is likely to be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo later this month.
The visit next week, which is yet to be formally announced by Downing Street, follows the successful completion of four out of 26 chapters in the ongoing India-UK free trade agreement negotiations.
While Pakistan has been showing considerable interest in having a bilateral trade deal with India that would help them access the country's booming markets, India has stated this can only become a possibility only when it recognises India as their non-discriminatory trading partner, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar told in an interview.
"It is shocking to note that Turkey, the second-largest arms supplier to Pakistan after China, has played a key role in modernising Pakistan's navy and enhancing its aerial warfare capabilities. "This defence collaboration is not just commercial; it is ideological, targeting the stability of South Asia and emboldening Pakistan's military adventurism," SJM national co-convenor Ashwini Mahajan said in a statement.
India overtook Canada to become China's tenth largest trading partner in January as monthly trade between China and India soared by 63.3 per cent to $2.63 billion, latest Chinese customs statistics show.
Industry body Assocham estimates that trade between India and Pakistan can touch the $10 billion mark by 2010 from $345 million in 2003-04, provided the execution of South Asian Free Trade Agreement is not thwarted and the trade basket is diversified
As a prelude to the proposed Free Trade Agreement, India and Bangladesh have agreed on a revised draft of bilateral trade agreement signed in 1980.
The much awaited Sino-Indian border trade through Nathula in Sikkim, scheduled to begin on July 6, will initially be a localised and low-key affair.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the US for a two-day working visit starting Wednesday. He will meet with President Donald Trump and engage in bilateral discussions on trade, investment, technology, defense cooperation, counterterrorism, Indo-Pacific security, and people-to-people relations. The visit is expected to further strengthen the India-US partnership.
'For the Indian economy to maintain a growth rate of 7 to 8 per cent, it needs large foreign direct investment coming in, and that's mainly coming from the US.'
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday proposed five steps, including trade liberalisation and trade expansion and diversification between India and China, to solidify mutual relationship.
With an intent to give a push to India-Qatar ties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Sunday held detailed talks on a wide range of issues.
Moody's Ratings on Tuesday said India has a lower overall exposure to the US relative to others in the APAC region, although certain sectors such as food, textiles and pharmaceutical products face risks. Moody's said most companies in its rated portfolio are domestic-focused with limited exposure to the US market.
Indian pharmaceutical firms foresee minimal disruptions in trade with Israel despite escalating regional tensions. Rising crude prices and export shipping insurance premiums have raised concerns, but the pharmaceutical sector remains optimistic. Pharmaceutical exports from India to Israel in FY 2020-21 amounted to $32.5 million, which represents only a minor segment of India's overall pharma exports.
Taiwan is keen to collaborate with India and help it become a leader in the semiconductor space, Jason Ho, chairman of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in India, said, asserting that the Taiwanese companies have the supply chain for things that the Indian market needs. Manufacturing semiconductors - used in electric and hybrid cars, drones, and communication devices - is fairly complicated, entails huge investment, and can be a cumbersome process.
While growth in India is largely domestic and hence the overall GDP effect may not be more than 0.15-0.2%, but overall trade will be impacted due to every country going back to the drawing board, points out Madan Sabnavis.
US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who is on a six-day visit to India for furthering the work outlined by US President Barack Obama in November last year.
'While criticising India's high tariffs, Mr Trump stated he would impose reciprocal taxes on Indian products if re-elected.' 'However, since India's tariffs follow WTO rules, Mr Trump's actions would violate these rules,' Ajay Srivastava points out.
Describing India as one of the few countries with a major potential for development, the visiting President of Switzerland, Pascal Couchepin.
Since multilateral trade creates a stable, peaceful world, normalisation of bilateral trade between India and Pakistan will start a series of peace building measures, especially along the bordering areas of both states which is the worst affected from the on-going conflict, say Riya Sinha and Shehzad Poonawalla.
The proposed India-Israel trade pact should be beneficial to both nations and until New Delhi gets a good deal, it would not do an agreement, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said. India and Israel are negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) since May 2010. "With Israel, until we get a good deal, we will not do an FTA. It has to be reciprocally beneficial," the minister said in San Francisco on Tuesday while interacting with the Indian community.
India's trade ties with Israel have only strengthened in the years after 2019. The total value of trade rose to $10.5 billion on a rolling four-quarter basis in June 2023 from $5.5 billion in the same month in 2019, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). A rolling four-quarter number provides a comparable figure across different time periods.
"It was agreed that the first meeting for this purpose (starting of negotiations for comprehensive economic cooperation agreement) would be scheduled by June or July," India's Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told reporters at a joint press conference with Australian Trade Minister Craig Emerson in Canberra, Australia.
