Thursday, November 3 2005 19:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: Indian exporters must diversify their exports to China to include auto components, machine tools and IT services in order to sustain the robust growth witnessed in recent times, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, E V K S Elangovan, said here today (Nov 3, 2005) .

"We are quite satisfied with the high growth in the India-China bilateral trade. Yet, both countries need to the examine closely the narrow composition of the trade basket and the insufficient use of each other's comparative advantages," Elangovan told sources here.

Elangovan, who represented India at the just-concluded First session of the Ministerial Council of the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), formerly known as Bangkok Agreement, said that for sustainable high volumes, diversification of the trade basket is not only important but imperative.

He cited areas like agriculture, dairy industry, food processing, auto components, machine tools and information technology where India had an advantage over China.

"The Indian industry should try and export more to China," he said while acknowledging that China has been complaining about anti-dumping investigations initiated by India on several Chinese goods.

"We have launched the anti-dumping cases against Chinese goods based on documentary evidence," Elangovan said, adding that New Delhi was willing to discuss the problems.

India-China trade ties have witnessed a quantum change in recent years. The bilateral trade at the end of 2000 was US$ three billion. In 2004 it touched US$ 13.6 billion. In the first eight months of 2005, the bilateral trade reached US$ 12.23 billion.