New Delhi: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are expected to sign a number of small-scale trade deals during Jintao’s visit to India.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies are looking for a piece of India’s booming consumer market of more than $10 billion. Haier, a Chinese consumer appliance company is also looking for its piece of pie.
"Earlier it used to be India against China and then it became India and China and today it is India with China. So if these two giants can work together with the business then, surely, it'll be a big power to reckon with,” says COO, Haier-India, Pranay Dhabhai.
But not all companies across Delhi see Chinese competitors always as partners.
"What we were finding was that we couldn't compete with the Chinese manufacturers - because if our cost price for a particular toothbrush was, let's say, one dollar we could get - our customers would come back and say, we can source the same product from a Chinese manufacturer for 20 cents,” says Vineet Khuller of DENT-AIDS.
However, during President Hu Jintao’s visit to India, trade is expected to dominate the headlines.
“China and India have great synergies. But let's not call it can FTA, we should look at an economic cooperation agreement, which is much more than that,” says Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath.
More Indian business is opening in China and more and more Chinese companies are doing business in India. In fact, the markets are flooded with products from China. On a consumer, practical and business level, there seems to be a lot of ties between the two countries. But on a political level, the two countries are much further apart.
“Yes, they are both a billion plus in population - but the similarities end there,” says Professor M D Nalapat.
He adds that China’s long standing relationship Pakistan worries India.
“The problem is that some of those companies are linked, in the Indian view, to security concerns,” he says.
Another sticking point in the two countries relationship are the borders. India says China controls roughly 16,000 square miles of its territory in Kashmir known as Aksai-Chin. And in the east, China claims rights to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
For now, the two countries with a combined population of more than two billion people continue to define just what their approaches are. And ultimately their relationship will be.
Source: IBN
Meanwhile, Chinese companies are looking for a piece of India’s booming consumer market of more than $10 billion. Haier, a Chinese consumer appliance company is also looking for its piece of pie.
"Earlier it used to be India against China and then it became India and China and today it is India with China. So if these two giants can work together with the business then, surely, it'll be a big power to reckon with,” says COO, Haier-India, Pranay Dhabhai.
But not all companies across Delhi see Chinese competitors always as partners.
"What we were finding was that we couldn't compete with the Chinese manufacturers - because if our cost price for a particular toothbrush was, let's say, one dollar we could get - our customers would come back and say, we can source the same product from a Chinese manufacturer for 20 cents,” says Vineet Khuller of DENT-AIDS.
However, during President Hu Jintao’s visit to India, trade is expected to dominate the headlines.
“China and India have great synergies. But let's not call it can FTA, we should look at an economic cooperation agreement, which is much more than that,” says Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath.
More Indian business is opening in China and more and more Chinese companies are doing business in India. In fact, the markets are flooded with products from China. On a consumer, practical and business level, there seems to be a lot of ties between the two countries. But on a political level, the two countries are much further apart.
“Yes, they are both a billion plus in population - but the similarities end there,” says Professor M D Nalapat.
He adds that China’s long standing relationship Pakistan worries India.
“The problem is that some of those companies are linked, in the Indian view, to security concerns,” he says.
Another sticking point in the two countries relationship are the borders. India says China controls roughly 16,000 square miles of its territory in Kashmir known as Aksai-Chin. And in the east, China claims rights to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
For now, the two countries with a combined population of more than two billion people continue to define just what their approaches are. And ultimately their relationship will be.
Source: IBN