China slaps anti-dumping duty on antibiotic from India

China has imposed anti-dumping duty of up to 37.7 per cent on sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic from India, following a final ruling made by China 's ministry of commerce which said sulfamethoxazole exports from India have inflicted losses to local manufacturers.

The anti-dumping duty rates were increased from 10.7 per cent to 37.7 per cent to offset damages caused by cheap imports to the local producers, and the tax would be in effect for five years.

Sulfamethoxazole is a sulfonamide bacteriostatic antibiotic is commonly used to treat urinary tract infections. It is also an important material for producing other sulfonamides.

China started its anti-dumping investigation on imported sulfamethoxazole from India last June, and imposed temporary anti-dumping measures in February this year on the basis of its preliminary investigations.

China, India pledge to enhance co-op in climate change

Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) meets with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Berlin, capital of Germany, on June 7,2007. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BERLIN, June 7 (Xinhua) -- China and India on Thursday pledged to enhance cooperation in tackling climate change that could causes welling sea levels and climate change.

At a meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the two leaders discussed issues including climate change and border talks between China and India.

Developed nations should first take the obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emission in line with the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," Hu said.

Meanwhile, developed nations should strengthen financial support and technology transfer for promoting sustained growth of the developing countries and improving the latter's capabilities in tackling climate change, he said.

China and India, the world's two most populous nations, were both influenced by the climate change while endeavoring to achieve sustained growth, he pointed out.

Singh said the stance of China and India on climate change was "close." As a global problem, addressing climate change requires "a global response," he stressed.

He said developing countries should not be asked to shoulder burden beyond their responsibilities and hoped to enhance coordination with China in this regard.

Hu and Singh were here to attend a so-called "outreach session" between five major developing countries -- China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa -- and members of the Group of Eight (G8),a group comprising the world's most industrialized countries, in Heiligendamm, a Baltic resort in Germany. The meeting is usually called G8 plus 5 meeting.

During the annual G8 summit, climate change has become a hot topic sparking heated debate, in particular on the goal for greenhouse gas emission and replacement of Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The two leaders also talked about border issue between the two countries.

"It is the common strategic goal for China and India to resolve the border issue, a problem left by history, at an early date," Hu said.

He hoped the two sides could step up work in line with the spirit of peace and friendship, equal consultation, and mutual respect and understanding.

Singh said that the two countries have reached consensus on the political principles for addressing the issue. The Indian side agreed to work hard in an effort to work out a practical solution at an early date.

Hu paid a visit to India last year and the two countries during Hu's visit reached "ten-item strategy" aiming at enriching the bilateral strategic and cooperative partnership.

Both Hu and Singh spoke highly the development of bilateral ties after the visit.

"The development of Sino-Indian ties is now on a fast track," Hu said, citing such facts as deepening political dialogue, steadily growing dual-track trade and close communication and coordination between the two countries in international and regional affairs.

The growth of Sino-Indian ties "will have significant and profound impact on the region and the world at large," Hu said.

Singh also commended bilateral cooperation within the framework of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and the G8 plus 5 meeting.

The Indian side is willing to enhance cooperation with China in combating common challenges, he said.

Later Thursday, Hu, Singh and leaders from Mexico, Brazil and South Africa will hold a collective meeting, usually regarded as a preclude to the G8 plus 5 meeting.

CHINA, INDIA IN THEIR OWN ‘RACE TO THE MOON'

China and India are both planning to launch moon shots within a year in the latest sign of the two Asian powerhouses' intensifying rivalry and growing technological prowess.

Although both countries deny they are engaged in a 21st century re-run of the 1960s race to the moon between the cold war superpowers, their haste to launch suggests more than casual interest in the other's progress.

China said this month that it expected to launch its first unmanned lunar orbiter, the Chang'e-1 (named after China's mythological "lady in the moon") before the end of this year, while India this week announced that it could send up a similar space probe as early as April 2008.

The two lunar programmes should be scientifically complementary, with Chinese scientists stressing Chang'e's goal of improving understanding of the geochemistry of the moon's surface and India focusing on three- dimensional mapping.

Chinese lunar programme scientist Ouyang Ziyuan told the Financial Times in 2005 that he was excited about the possibility that the moon might be a rich source of helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion reactors that is scarce on earth.

S Krishnamurthy, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organisation, said yesterday that the spin-offs for India's nuclear programme from potential lunar sources of helium-3 could be "considerable".

Non-governmental groups have put the Indian space agency on the defensive about the programme, arguing it is hard for a country that is home to a quarter of the world's poor to justify costly space missions.

Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, has defended it, saying the country must deal with the fundamental problems of development and at the same time aspire to operate on the frontiers of science.

"In the increasingly globalised world we live in, a base of scientific and technical knowledge has emerged as a critical determinant of the wealth and status of nations and it is that which drives us to programmes of this type," he said last year.

China and India: The two differ in business as much as they do in politics

The excitement among investors over the prospects of the "Brics" �C the big emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa �C has begun to metamorphose into a more realistic enthusiasm for "Chindia". China and India, after all, are by the far the largest and fastest growing of the five.

China, with 1.3bn people, and India, with 1.1bn, happen to be the world's most populous nations. Both economies are growing exceptionally fast, and both are increasingly dependent on imports of energy and raw materials.

Even some of the obvious differences that do exist are simply a matter of timing. Because China started growing earlier and grew faster, India is poorer and the average Indian still has only half as much income as the average Chinese.

The Indian economy, meanwhile, is starting to become more like China's. Jonathan Anderson, head of Asia-Pacific economics for UBS, notes that India, with low savings rates and resulting low investment, used to look more like Latin America than east Asia. Now its savings rate is approaching 30 per cent, and exports are rising as a share of gross domestic product.

Mr Anderson told the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong recently: "India is looking like a tiger." His talk was appropriately entitled: "India, the next China? Or China, the next India?"

Yet some of the differences between the two are so vast that they undermine any attempt at a common analysis. China is a Communist dictatorship, while India is the world's largest democracy. China's population growth will stop in the next two decades, while India will have to find jobs for hundreds of millions of young job seekers as the number of its inhabitants exceeds China's and heads towards 1.6bn.

Chinese leaders typically hand down orders for economic reform from the top, organise the rapid building of infrastructure and cater for the urbanisation that comes with economic growth.

Indian governments generally resist reform, prevaricate over investing in infrastructure and �C sentimental as they are about a non-existent ideal of rural Indian life �C refuse to cater for the tens of millions of rural migrants flooding into the cities.

When considering these attitudes, and the fact that China is a manufacturing power exporting nearly $1,000bn a year or seven times as much as India, it is tempting to conclude that China is destined for success and India for failure. The reality is more complex and more interesting, largely because of the way politics interacts with markets and with the private sector.

Indian financial markets are lively and robust (though not immune to bubbles), whereas Chinese markets are small and highly constrained by the limitations of the country's private sector and tight government controls.

India's leading private companies have carved out niches in sectors such as information technology, pharmaceuticals and financial back-office outsourcing that would normally find a place in a much more advanced economy. And they have reacted to onerous labour regulations by developing capital-intensive businesses that would not normally exist in a country with low-cost, surplus labour.

As a result, a cohort of the best Indian companies boasts an international competitiveness that allows them to make outward investments in developed economies �C and not just in the natural resources sector, where Chinese state companies are also eager buyers. Even if one excludes Tata's contested $10bn bid for Corus, the European steel group, overseas acquisitions by Indian companies will more than double to this year from last year's $4.5bn.

"Currently, the Indian model is generating more companies ready to move to a global scale of operations," says Gordon Orr, Greater China chairman of McKinsey, the consultancy. "The advantage of the Indian model has been the emergence of a few large-scale, capital-intensive companies early on."

In China �C although outsiders imagine a rampant capitalist sector thriving under the benign guidance of a nominally Communist government �C domestic private companies remain constrained by the need to work with powerful provincial governments and the state-owned enterprises that dominate all the key sectors of the economy.

"Private firms say: 'We can only be the concubines of the state-owned enterprises or the mistresses of the multinationals," comments a Chinese economist, who asked not to be named. Asked why the private sector could not be unleashed for the benefit of all, the economist replied: "It would be good for the economy, but not for the party."

Foreign investors say the Communist Party still has an ambivalent attitude towards private companies. It regards their main roles as giving support to state-controlled companies and providing employment for millions of workers �C which is why light industrial activities such as furniture-making are favoured activities.

With a couple of exceptions �C the jury is still out on Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's personal computer business �C Chinese brands have so far failed to make a big impact in foreign markets.

Struggling to make themselves heard among the many bullish analysts, a few sceptics have sounded warning notes.

India, they say, will be hamstrung by populism, a reluctance to open its economy and infrastructure bottlenecks.

China's growth will be stunted by its dependence on the US and other uncertain foreign markets (one of the disadvantages of openness) and by the Communist Party's refusal to allow the rise of a real free-market economy.

"It's taken for granted that China will grow fast unless there is political trouble," says Diana Choyleva of Lombard Street Research. "Even on economic grounds, that's not so clear."

In the race to become developed economies, China and India have very different challenges and can hardly be said to be on the same track. They might end up in the same place. But if they do, it will take a long time and each will have achieved success by a very different route.