China and India should establish more co-operation mechanisms in
order to complement their strengths, senior business leaders said
in Beijing yesterday.
"China and India should establish more channels between each
other, as they have similar problems to address in the coming
years, such as creating more jobs and dealing with urbanization,"
said Surin Pitsuwan, Thailand's former foreign minister.
Pitsuwan made the comments on the sidelines of the
BusinessWeek CEO Forum in Beijing. The event, organized by
the US magazine, attracted about 50 global and Asian business
leaders from all over the world.
China and India, now two of the world's fastest growing major
economies, have been the driving forces of global economic growth
in recent years. For the past two decades, China has been growing
at around 10 percent a year, and India by 6 percent far greater
than the global average.
"The growth has been impressive and due to their performance
real per capita income growth has doubled every seven years since
the 1990s," said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, economic adviser of MasterCard
Worldwide.
"Yet, the two countries will have to address a number of
problems to sustain robust long-term growth," said Wong.
China currently accounts for 21 percent of the world's
population and India for 19 percent. Their huge populations require
the two countries to keep growing rapidly to provide jobs for the
tens of millions entering the workforce every year, according to
Wong.
Meanwhile, companies from the two developing countries may have
to compete with each other as they are both relying heavily on the
manufacturing industries to take advantage of their low labor
costs, economists said.
(China Daily November 2, 2006)