Within few days of the change of guard in the political leadership in China, a big Chinese delegation is scheduled to engage in ‘Strategic Economic Dialogue’ with India on Monday.

This will be the second such meeting.

The Chinese delegation will be led by the Chairman of the National Development and Reforms Commission (NDRC) Zhang Ping while India has fielded the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

NDRC is thought to be similar in function to the Planning Commission in India, but its Chairman holds a very significant position in the overall policy structure.

The Chinese delegation will consist of four deputy ministers, senior NDRC officials beside a large contingent of industrialists. From the Indian side, the Foreign Secretary, the Economic Affairs Secretary, the Commerce Secretary, the Railway Board Chairman and senior Government officials will participate.

Giving details about the meeting, Member Secretary of the Planning Commission Sindhushree Khullar said, “The Chinese Delegation is expected to be 200 in numbers. Apart from the Government level talks, the Chinese industrialists will have business-to-business (B2B) meetings with their Indian counterparts which will co-ordinated by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).”

She also informed that four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) will be signed during the meeting. These include an MoU between the Planning Commission and NDRC on planning and policy co-ordination, an MoU for sharing the technology and experience in energy efficiency measures, an MoU between Nasscom and its Chinese counterpart and an MoU between the Railways of two countries.

This dialogue is a result of consensus reached by the Governments of India and China. Its establishment was announced in the India-China joint communiqués issued during the visit to India by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2010. The first such dialogue took place in Beijing on September 26, 2011.

Both sides considered the first dialogue as highly productive and successful. Meanwhile, Indian Government officials admitted that security was one of the key issues in terms of investment by Chinese companies.

They also anticipate this issue to be discussed during the business level meetings.

At the same time issue about trade highly in favour of China likely to crop up during the session on enhancing sustainable trade linkages during the Government level meetings.

> Shishir.Sinha@thehindu.co.in

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