Betting high on China, Confederation of Indian Industry will ramp up its business plan for the Communist giant manifold in the next one year, including encouraging a 100 more Indian companies to do business with China, and visualises a Sino-Indian bilateral trade volume of $100 billion by 2015.
CII plans business events across China, a 'Made-in-India' show in the booming Guanzhou city, a CEOs meet and visits by 1,000 young Indian businessmen -- all aimed at increasing India's market share in China and spurring Indian entrepreneurs to invest in the world's fourth largest economy.
On its part, the CII would expand its Shanghai office and open one more in Beijing, CII Chief Mentor Tarun Das told PTI.
Buying missions from China to India are also planned, said Das, who was here with a broad agenda of trade and investment in China and to attend a meeting on space initiatives.
"India's exports to China have a narrow base. We need to understand how to do business with China, how to sell to China and what to sell to China, specially finished products, not just iron ore. Otherwise, the trade imbalance will continue to grow", he said.
The planned activities would also help bridge the information gap and build confidence of Chinese in Indian products.
"We have to reach out to the Chinese private sector and get them to buy from India", he said, adding, CII wants to encourage 100 Indian firms to do business with China in the next one year. Das said the volume of bilateral trade, now around $40 billion, could go up to $50 to 55 billion in the next two years and it could be doubled by 2015. "In seven to eight years, we could go up to $100 billion".
"The trade is going to shift from India-Europe, India-USA to India-China," he said. "We will continue to trade with the West. But the rate of growth of India's trade with the West will be smaller than the rate of growth with China".
Das said business events would be held to project Indian products and build the confidence of Chinese in them so that they would buy more from India. The events would also encourage Indian firms to invest in China.
In September this year, a business meeting of CEOs and 'senior people' is planned to be held at Tianjin in China.
Visits by about 1000 young Indian businessmen from mid sized companies would be organised to 'connect' them with their Chinese counterparts to facilitate a two-way exchange
CII would also partner with the Chinese media to organise a trip to India to places like Mumbai and Bangalore to write about the Indian industry and its emergence as a modern and competitive one.
He said CII would also pursue with Indian government the setting up of a Joint CEOs Forum as was agreed to between India and China during the January visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Beijing.
CII, he said, would strengthen its presence in Shanghai and open another office in Beijing. "We will have the Beijing office as soon as we get permission from Chinese authorities".
Das said there was need to have a special focus on some provinces in China for doing business. He met businessmen of Yunnan province on improving trade.
He said daily direct flight connectivity to China from different cities in India needs to be increased. Also, well produced cultural programmes coupled with business plans were a "winning combination". "We have to do a combined selling of India all over China".
At the Global Space Development Summit, Das presented Indian industry perspective on the space side and the involvement of its private sector in space programmes.
The Summit was organised by Chinese Society of Astronautics and Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Over 100 officials, experts and scholars, political leaders and entrepreneurs from Japan, India, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain Norway, Malaysia and Canada took part.
Experts and scholars shared their views on space exploration and international space cooperation, building a framework for discussion at a strategic level. International cooperation in space has become a significant issue for future space development and the summit had laid a good foundation for establishing an "effective mode" for international space cooperation, the organisers said.