India-China finance dialogue cancelled

The India-China Financial Dialogue due to be held here between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei next week has been cancelled.

Jaitley is due to arrive here on Thursday on a five-day visit to take part in a host of events including the planned eighth financial dialogue. But the dialogue meet stands cancelled, informed sources here told PTI.

Officials explained that the meet was cancelled as Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das could not attend it. Till now, the two countries have held seven rounds of financial dialogues but all of them were headed by Finance Secretaries of both sides.

This is the first time it was elevated to level of finance



ministers of both the countries. The seventh dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2014.

It was officially circulated earlier that the dialogue would be held between the two ministers on June 27. The dialogue enables the two countries to annually review and discuss a wide gamut of international, bilateral issues for strengthening and deepening economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

It was conceptualised in 2003 and the framework was formalised through an MoU signed in April 2005.

The cancellation of the June 27 meeting comes in the backdrop of India-China differences over New Delhi’s admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the group’s meeting in Seoul.