India and China trade at an all-time high | Fusion - WeRIndia

Recently, bilateral tensions between China and India have been high, caused by a number of issues that have arisen in recent times.

These issues include China blocking Indian efforts to enact a UN ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammad leader Masood Azhar, China preventing India from entering the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and of course, the 73-day Doklam standoff.

However, despite this, the bilateral trade between these two countries reached a historic high of $84.44 billion last year.

Not only was this an 18.63% increase from 2016, but the amount of Indian exports to China saw an increase as well.

According to the data of the Chinese General Administration of Customs that was accessed by the PTI, there was a 40% increase in Indian exports to China last year, which totaled to $16.34 billion.

Despite the fact that both India and China had set $100 billion as the target for their bilateral trade in 2015, it continued to stagnate around $70 billion for several years.

However, last year, the two countries reached a landmark in their bilateral trade, with it exceeded $80 billion for the first time.

This landmark far exceeds the $71.18 billion that was registered in 2016.

Although the bilateral trade has still not reached the $100 billion goal, officials from both countries expect trade to pick up later this year.

Both the Indian government and the Chinese government are trying to scale down tensions and return to normal.

As a part of this normalization process, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting China in June, where he will take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Qingdao.

Also, China will soon be naming a new commerce minister, who is expected to visit India in the coming weeks to discuss the bilateral trade between the two countries.

Despite the recent issues and tensions between China and India, the two countries are hoping to put their differences aside and return to normal in the near future.

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