India-China finance dialogue between Jaitley, Jiwei cancelled

The India-China financial dialogue due to be held here between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.

Jaitley will land in Beijing on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue.

But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources here told PTI.

Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das could not attend the meeting.

Till now the two countries held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.

This is the first time it was elevated to level of Finance Ministers of both countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.

It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27.

The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.

The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhi’s admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the group’s meeting in Seoul.

During his visit to China, which is the first after he took over as finance minister, Jaitley is due to address meetings of bankers and wealth fund managers and business investors meeting to scout for investments in India.

He is also due to attend the Board of Governors meeting of the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India along with 56 countries are members.