India, China to discuss trade resumption via 3 land routes

India and China are looking to resume trade through three land routes along the Line of Actual Control. The matter is listed for discussion at a meeting of the designated Special Representatives (SRs) of the two countries on the boundary issue in New Delhi on August 18.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, addressing mediapersons today, said: “We have remained engaged with the Chinese side to facilitate the resumption of border trade through the designated trade points — Lipulekh Pass (Uttarakhand), Shipki La (Himachal Pradesh), and Nathu La (Sikkim).”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the SR for China, is set to travel to India to hold talks with the Indian representative, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

Sources said both sides have proposed the restart of trade, primarily of locally made goods, through the LAC, the de facto border. For over three decades, the two countries have traded locally produced goods such as spices, carpets, wooden furniture, cattle fodder, pottery, medicinal plants, electrical items and wool through three designated points along the 3,488-km disputed border.

The trading routes were closed during the Covid-19 pandemic in the early part of 2020. Around the same time, a military stand-off had unfolded between the two sides.

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In October last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met and decided to resume the stalled bilateral relationship. The SRs were tasked with overseeing steps to ensure peace and tranquillity along the border. The SRs have also been asked to work out a “fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” solution to the boundary issue.

The two SRs met in China in December last year and the meeting this month comes in the backdrop of renewed efforts to resolve the pending issues.

In June and July this year, India had twice asked China to resolve “issues” along the LAC.

PM Modi is expected to travel to China later this month — his first visit in seven years — to attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting and hold bilateral talks with President Xi on the sidelines.

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