SCO Summit: India and China, a business secret you probably didn't know
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "SCO Summit: India and China, a business secret you probably didn't know")
A meeting of Indian and Chinese officials. Photograph: (ANI file)
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin: PM Modi was invited to the summit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. This will be PM Modi's second visit to China.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in China between August 31 and September 1. The Summit will be organised in China's Tianjin. It will be the fifth SCO summit hosted by the Xi Jinping-led nation. New Delhi joined the SCO, which now has 10 members, in 2017.
PM Modi was invited to the summit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. His acceptance of the Chinese invitation coincides with US President Donald Trump imposing 50 percent tariffs on India for buying Russian oil and weapons.
India and Beijing's relations have remained strained since the Chinese troops attempted to transgress the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in 2020. 20 Indian soldiers died in the line of duty battling Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh's Galwan Valley. Several Chinese troops also perished in the brutal hand-to-hand combat.
After several years of diplomatic and military efforts, India and China disengaged on several friction points last year.
However, despite the acrimony, the trade between the two sides was booming. According to the Indian Embassy's data, India's imports from China grew from $65.21 billion to $94.57 billion in 2021-2022. In 2022-2023, India's imports from China were $98.51 billion. In 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, the import figures grew further -- $101.74 billion and $113.46 billion.
India and China's trade deficit has also been increasing. In 2021-2022, it was $73.01. In 2022-2023, it was $83.20; in 2023-2024, it was $85.08, and in 2024-2025, it was $99.21.
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The Indian Embassy in Beijing said in the document that India and China's trade volumes have grown over the year. However, it expressed concerns over the trade deficit.
"Our trade deficit concerns are two-pronged. One is the actual size of the deficit. Two is the fact that the imbalance has continuously been widening year after year to reach USD 99.21 billion in 2024-2025," it said.
India exportsiron ore, light naphtha, p-xylene, shrimps, and castor oil. China, on the other hand, exportsmachinery, electronics, personal computers, Monolithic integrated circuits, parts of telephonic/telegraphic equipment, lithium-ion, and fertilizers, etc.
According to the Ministry of Commerce of China, Chinese investments in India in the year of 2023 were USD 60.37 million, and cumulative Chinese investments in India were USD 3.2 billion till 2023 (since 2015). According to DPIIT data, India’s cumulative Foreign Direct Investment into China till March 2025 (since April 2000) was USD 2.5 billion.