Restriction to China, Restriction to Chance
The Ministry of Commerce showed its worry on its website yesterday of the thorny issue resulting from India’s practice of limiting the imports from China. It also made the suggestion that India should take a second thought about this action.
It’s reported by the Ministry that India took its stand mainly in three aspects. In the first place, seventeen trade remedy survey have been launched by the Indian government on products imported from China since October 2008. The total amount of all the products concerned, including linen fabric, tires and hot rolled steel, worthies $1.5 billion. Secondly, steel, chemical products and textile products are restricted to enter into the India market from China recently. Thirdly, India has declared its prohibition of importing toys from China for six months starting from Jan 23, 2009. With the actions taken, India has set potential dangers in the trade relations that amounts to $50 billion between the two nations.
The toy imports ban would have severe impact on China since India imported an average of 1.2 million toys from the country per week from 1992 to 2003, and the Chinese toys took a dominating position by covering 80 percent of the market share in India in 1997. As a result, China showed its attitude the moment the ban was declared. It is possible for the country to make inquiry to the World Trade Organization about whether the ban infringes WTO laws.
“The case of toys is a case of multiple interests at work,” said Subir Gokarn, chief Asia-Pacific economist of Standard & Poor’s. “The domestic industry is completely non-competitive with respect to Chinese, and they have been finding themselves hammered.”
Some analysts indicated that the ban would stimulate an incredible increase by 30 percent in the demand for Indian-made dolls, stuffed animals, puzzles and other playthings.
Dong Shizhong, Fudan university law school professor and an expert in WTO dispute settlement mechanism pointed out the serious situation that the ban would lead to. He said, “After the import restriction to China’s toy industry by India, with the spread of recession worldwide, more trade barriers will appear.”
Yao Jian, spokesman for the commerce ministry, said that in the current world economic situation, it is India’s responsibility to think of a better and more reasonable way of using trade remedy measures. He added that members of both G20 and APEC have determined to eradicate trade protectionism, and the two nations should achieve mutual benefits through adequate communication and cooperation rather than setting up trade restrictions.
Zhong Shan, the Vice-Minister of Commerce, presented his hope that better communication would ease the trade tensions between the two nations, when he fulfilled the appointment with Indian ambassador Nirupama Rao in Beijing on Feb 3.
India has turned to be the tenth top trading partner of China, judging from the fact that the bilateral trade between the two nations rose from 41.6 percent to $48.38 billion in 2008.
In summarize, what India has done against China is by no means well grounded.
Are you interested in the business opportunities in China?
China is one of the world’s great growth markets and is likely to be for many years to come. Foreign companies often face difficulties in assessing Chinese market demand and enacting effective strategies because of the language barriers, culture differences, and high expense.
BPOVIA is the leading virtual assistant and Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) service provider in China. BPOVIA is the only virtual assistant company ever been nominated for the prestigious “Red Herring 100 Asia” Awards 2008. Combines international perspective with local know-how, BPOVIA can provide our clients China business development service and help our clients doing successful business in China.
Please visit http://www.BPOVIA.com/ for details about our service.
Popularity: 7% [?]