India-China financial dialogue postponed till next month

The Dollar Business Bureau

The India-China financial dialogue, to be held in Beijing between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week, has been postponed till next month.

The meeting was deferred as Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das was unable to attend the meeting.

"Only Secretary, DEA's level Indo-China Dialogue has been postponed as he deferred his visit to deal with BREXIT-related issues back home," Ministry of Finance tweeted.

Jaitley will, however, embark on a five-day visit to China to participate in the first annual meeting of the board of governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The eighth round of India-China Financial Dialogue will now be held in July. The two countries have held seven rounds of financial dialogues, headed by Finance Secretaries of the two countries.

The dialogue enables the two countries to review and discuss a wide range of bilateral and international issues for bolstering economic and financial cooperation between the two economies.

The decision also coincides with the recent set of spars over India’s membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Brexit phenomenon and Modi’s visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, where he is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to discuss India’s NSG membership.