Economy leading India-China relationship: Arun Jaitley

Economy is leading the way in the relationship between India and China, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said as he stressed that the two largest economies in the region are seeing an uptick in investment and trade issues are being sorted out.

“As far as the economic relationship (between India and China) is concerned, that is significantly improving almost by the day,” Jaitley said in response to a question on the India-China economic relationship following his address at the Asia Society here yesterday.

“You have two very large economies in the region where trade is picking up, trade issues are sorted out, investments are taking places,” he said after his talk on ‘Make in India - The New Deal’ presented by CII in partnership with the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Jaitley emphasised that Indian industry has set up establishments in China and Chinese investments have also come into India in “a big way”. “Economy is leading the way as far as the relationship between the two countries is concerned,” he said.

On the need for improving air connectivity between New Delhi and Beijing, Jaitley said there are several private and state airlines operating in India and China and anyone of these airlines “will now have to take the initiative” to expand services between the two nations.

He cited the example of India’s direct connectivity with Australia, Japan and the US west coast, adding that “it is only a matter of time before” more direct flights between India and China come up instead of just one or two operating services between the two.