By IANS
New Delhi : Corporate India is readying to cash in on the China challenge with top business honchos accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Beijing Sunday, putting the spotlight on burgeoning business ties between the two rising Asian powers.
Anil Ambani of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, telecom tsar Suni Bharati Mittal, who also heads the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Vinod Mittal of Ispat Industries Ltd and H. Khorakiwala, chairman of pharmaceutical major Wockhardt Ltd, are among leading industrialists who will be in Beijing next weekend.
Sanjiv Batra, chairman-cum-managing director of MMTC Ltd, Ramesh Adige, executive director, Ranbaxy Industries Ltd and H.S. Banga, chairman, Nobel India Ltd, are also expected to be part of the 40-odd-member business delegation.
Manmohan Singh goes to China on a three-day visit Sunday.
Leading lights of India’s apex business bodies, including the CII and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), will also be part of the business team that will explore new business opportunities offered by China, one of Asia’s fastest growing economies.
Between them, these industrialists straddle diverse sectors including information technology, automobiles, petrochemicals, media, pharmaceuticals, engineering and telecommunications.
Manmohan Singh, an economist and liberaliser who is credited with opening the Indian economy in the early 1990s when he was a finance minister, will also meet the crème de la crème of the Chinese business world Jan 14.
Singh is also likely to speak to experts at the Academy of Social Sciences about the Indian experience of blending economic growth and social equity and Indian success in fields like education and institution building.
Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who will be part of the prime minister’s entourage, will speak at a business meeting organised by the China Council for Promotion of International Trade in Beijing on the same day.
Chinese industry is upbeat about doing business in India and plans to invest around $8 billion in different projects in India over the next couple of years.
Not so long ago, trade and investment between the two countries – which fought a brief but bitter border war in 1962 – were hardly anything to cheer about. Now, economic ties are blooming.
Bilateral trade from January to November 2007 topped $34.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 54 percent.
If it continues at this pace, bilateral trade will cross $40 billion much before 2010 – the target set by the two countries during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India.