by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Large Enterprise, Markets, Medium Enterprise, News, Politics, SMEs
By Ranjana Narayan,
New Delhi : As India prepares to celebrate the silver jubilee of its partnership with ASEAN in a big way, a key border trade link with Myanmar, the closest neighbour of the vibrant Southeast Asian bloc, continues to be hobbled by infrastructure and other issues — 22 years after it was launched.
India’s border trade with Myanmar takes place mainly through Moreh, in Manipur’s Chandel district, which links with Tamu, located in Sagaing in northwest Myanmar. There is another border trade point through Zowkhathar in Mizoram with the corresponding point Rhi in Myanmar, but Moreh is the biggest border trade point.
Though India and Myanmar signed the border trade agreement on January 21, 1994, and it was made operational the following year, the bilateral border trade figure stands at $50 million — a poor comparison to Myanmar’s trade with China, which was around $6 billion last year.
Myanmar has four border trading points with China, of which the one at Muse, in northern Shan state, is the biggest. Around 80 per cent of Myanmar’s formal overland trade with China passes through this post that links with Ruili, in China’s Yunnan province.
While China has pumped in massive amounts of money to build modern infrastructure at Ruili and also in Yunnan province to boost connectivity with Myanmar, the infrastructure at the India-Myanmar border post, Moreh, is still inadequate. An Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Moreh has been in the works for the past 10 years and is yet to be completed.
Besides the difficult terrain and militancy that adversely affect border trade at Moreh-Tamu, India in December 2015 officially put an end to the barter system, or trading of goods without exchange of money. According to Myanmarese media reports, the ending of barter trade “killed” India-Myanmar border trade.
Professor Priyoranjan Singh, an economist at Manipur University, says that since the Government of India notification ending barter trade, “the present state is that formal trade, or normal official trade, stands at zero, and informal, or illegal trade — or head load trade — is going on”.
He told IANS that there was a “huge information gap” between the two sides, including among the traders. “Our own Indian customs agency does not know the customs duty that Myanmar imposes on Indian goods,” he said.
Singh, who has expertise in the field, feels that “seriousness is not there” in India on boosting border trade, while China exhibits “huge seriousness, which is something Myanmar likes”.
Gautam Mukhopadhyay, former Indian envoy to Myanmar, says there are reasons for China’s border trade with Myanmar being more robust than India.
“First, Yunnan is a much better connected and more productive gateway from China to Myanmar than the Northeast of India to Myanmar. Secondly, for any Northeastern state of India to match China in cross-border trade, the region has to become a net producer than consumer, and better connected to the main productive regions of India,” Mukhopadhyay said.
He said efforts were being made in that direction. “But it will take some time and better coordination between our development, commercial and strategic policies for us to match China.”
He said the government has tried to address the issue of low volumes by liberalising cross-border trade and moving to the Most Favoured Nation trade status, but there was a “need for a reliable system to determine countries of origin of goods”. A lot of goods from China are available in the markets in the region.
Economist Ram Upendra Das, head of the Centre for Regional Trade, an autonomous institute under the Commerce Ministry, in his report on ‘Enhancing India-Myanmar border trade’ released last year by the ministry, says: “A major cause of discontent among local traders is that the pace of construction of Moreh ICP is very slow.”
Das told IANS that “it is very important that border trade is conducted through formal channels”, which would help increase the volume as India has slashed the tariff in a majority of items to zero, which means no border tax.
“There is an information gap and lack of understanding among the traders” on the benefits of conducting trade through the formal channel, he said. Informal trade would also give rise to corruption, in the form of levy imposed by militant groups and bribes, he added.
On China developing the infrastructure in Myanmar, Mukhopadhyay says: “China has made huge investments into power and extractive industries for its own interests, but very little into employment-intensive industries that really benefit Myanmar. China has been able to convert its more selfish investments into greater political clout than India. This is something we need to think about.”
(Ranjana Narayan can be contacted at ranjana.n@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, World
Beijing : China is expected to overtake the US to become the world’s largest importer within five years, a leading Chinese investment firm said on Monday.
In the past ten years, China’s annual average import growth was six percentage points higher than the US, Xinhua news agency reported.
If that growth gap remains in 2018 and moderates by 0.15 percentage points in each of the following years in a baseline scenario, the country will become the world’s largest importer by 2022, according to a report released by China International Capital Corporation (CICC).
By a more conservative estimate, China will become the top importer by 2025, CICC said.
China is now the world’s largest exporter and the second largest importer. As the domestic economy has stabilised and global commodity prices have recovered, imports in the first ten months of the year rose 21.5 per cent year on year, official data showed.
The country’s rising imports have a significant global impact, as it is the largest importer for 41 countries and regions, compared with 36 for the US, the CICC report said.
With imports likely to continue to outpace exports in the coming few years, China’s foreign trade will become more balanced as it has been in the past two years, according to CICC.
CICC predicts the trade surplus in goods and services will account for around 1 per cent of GDP in 2017, the lowest level since 1994.
China is also expected to become the world’s largest consumer market and start importing more consumer-related products than industrial materials, as its growth becomes increasingly consumer driven.
“In our view, the rise of Chinese consumers, with its significant positive spillover effect on the rest of the world, will be the most important and exciting investment story in the coming years,” the report said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Networking, Technology
Sundar Pichai
Shanghai : Hinting at a possible resumption of a harmonius relationship with China, Google’s India-born Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on Sunday said that a lot of the tech giant’s work actually helps Chinese companies.
Attending the fourth edition of the Chinese state-run “World Internet Conference” in Wuzhen, near Shanghai, Pichai said that many small and medium-sized businesses in China take advantage of Google to get their products to many other countries outside of China, the South China Morning Post reported.
The Google website and most of the company’s products — including YouTube — are banned in mainland China.
Google shut down its Chinese search engine seven years ago after a direct confrontation over Beijing’s censorship policies.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins also attended the event.
The previous three conferences in 2014, 2015 and 2016 were not attended by such heavyweight US tech executives as Cook or Pichai.
Cook told the event that “the theme of this conference – developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits – is a vision we at Apple share”.
He said that Apple “is proud to have worked alongside” many of its partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace.
Apple this year agreed to Chinese government requests to remove dozens of virtual private network (VPN) apps – services that allow Chinese users to access blocked websites – from its local App Store.
Skype, the calling app, was removed from its mainland App Store this autumn.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : With emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics knocking at India’s doors, the country needs to sow the learning seeds early — in the classroom — and China and Turkey can show the way, top global Intel executives have said.
The world has realised what is coming its way in the next 10-20 years and has already begun modernising classrooms at schools to prepare a technology-ready workforce.
“The Chinese and Turkish authorities have given kids IoT-enabled devices in millions of schools. Every student has a device connected to an intelligent whiteboard at the front of the classroom. There are teacher-controlled devices too. The curriculum is designed for that kind of environment. This is the future of education,” Joe D. Jensen, Vice President, Internet of Things (IoT) Group, and General Manager, Retail Solutions Division at Intel, told IANS.
“Intel has installed 400,000 IoT-enabled connected devices for schools in Turkey, a million-and-a half in Chinese schools and another million to go in China in the next two years,” Jensen informed.
Technology can do wonders in providing a great educational experience and create a pool of talent for these disrupting technologies.
“In China, the newest innovation is that there are eight video cameras and a series of microphones in a classroom at certain private schools and colleges. The videos of the classroom activities are recorded daily. Parents can later log on and see the student-teacher interaction,” Jensen told IANS.
For Lisa Davis, Vice President and General Manager, IT Transformation for Enterprise and Government at Intel, while India is at the cusp of dramatic changes in delivering next-generation education, it is also set to learn new ways to infuse technology in many other sectors.
“Not just education, we are looking at the financial services, transportation, retail and health-care sectors too in India. The next big wave is coming in video surveillance and the security sector, and our teams are engaged with the stakeholders in the country,” Davis told IANS.
Intel has also pushed the envelope towards creating a modern workforce in India. In April this year, Intel made a commitment to democratise AI in the country by training 15,000 developers and engage with not just businesses but also the government and academia to enable the adoption of AI.
Intel India has trained 9,500 developers, students and professors in the past six months.
The chip giant has collaborated with 40 academic institutions that are using the technology for scientific research and 50 public and private organisations across e-commerce, health-care, technology, defence, and banking and financial services.
Intel India has also launched an initiative to strengthen the use of technology in the country’s education ecosystem. It is collaborating with leading device manufacturers, education digital content publishers and education solution providers to build end-to-end solutions that promote the use of technology.
The company will then help deploy management solutions for schools, classrooms, content and learning, and also manage student information systems.
There is an Intel India Maker Lab in Bengaluru to drive the innovation ecosystem in the country. The lab offers access to start-ups of hardware and software development kits, reference boards, design collaterals, test and debugging equipment. It provides technical support for design, development and testing products.
“India is at the cusp of a technology boom, but needs training and teaching right from the beginning to prepare a future digital workforce,” Davis stressed.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Nay Pyi Taw : China is ready to further boost cooperation with the ASEAN, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
Wang said on Monday that Beijing has appreciated positive response of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to China’s proposal to formulate a vision for strategic partnership between China and the ASEAN by 2030, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Chinese Foreign Minister’s remarks came during the meeting with his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan on the sidelines of the 13th Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in the Myanmar capital.
Wang also expressed appreciation for the important role of Singapore, as a coordinator of China-ASEAN ties, in deepening China-ASEAN cooperation and properly handling the South China Sea issue as well as its efforts for a successful ASEAN summit and related meetings in the Philippines last week.
The 10-member ASEAN groups include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
China will support Singapore, which holds ASEAN’s rotating chair in 2018, in fulfilling its duties as the host country, Wang said.
China is willing to work with the ASEAN countries for substantive consultations on the text of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea based on mutual respect and equal footing so as to continue promoting mutual trust and safeguarding peace and stability in the South China Sea, he said.
For his part, Balakrishnan said Singapore is ready to work with China to bring the all-around pragmatic cooperation between the two countries to a new high and consolidate the positive momentum in the South China Sea.
—IANS
