India and China have signed a series of agreements, including several MoUs on pharmaceuticals, meat and fisheries during the newly appointed Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's maiden visit to our country recently.

These agreements carry a lot of significance for Indian exports as all these items are of immense trade importance to us. Our exporters enjoy price and quality competitiveness in these sectors, but they have to struggle with a number of regulatory hurdles while exporting these goods to China. In the past, India has raised these issues before China but nothing concrete had happened till now.

Among the total eight new agreements signed at the conclusion of delegation-level talks, an MoU on pharmaceutical products was signed between Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) and the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products (CCCMHPIE). I think this could be major boost to our pharmaceutical exports. Currently, Indian pharmaceutical companies are facing a number of business related regulations and it is expected that the new agreement will pave the way for them to explore the Chinese market, which is a large and lucrative for low-cost generic medicines.

Similarly, an MoU was signed between the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), the nodal agency for promotion of export of marine products from India, and China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). It is expected that this agreement could soon lead to the China accepting quality certificates given by MPEDA and this, in turn, would significantly lower compliance costs for our fishery exporters.

Another MoU on exports of meat from India to China was signed between India's Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) and China's AQSIQ. This, I think would, help us to increase our meat exports to China. In addition, with a newly signed agreement between Export Inspection Council of India and AQSIQ, I expect that China would soon allow our exporters to supply rapeseed oil. This was banned last year.

These recent developments have come as a pleasant surprise to the Indian side. India has raised the issue of trade imbalance with China from time to time, but unfortunately there was never much response from the latter. However, this time it seems a little different, at least till now, with the Chinese side showing strong commitment towards addressing the trade imbalance which has widened to $40.8 billion in 2012-13 from $39.4 billion in 2011-12, in China's favour. I hope Mr. Li's words would meet with action.

I invite your feedback.