Kolkata, Sept. 23 -- The bilateral trade between China and India from January to August, 2026, reached 125 billion US dollars, said Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Kolkata Xu Wei at the 2026 Chinese National Day reception on Tuesday evening. "This represents a year-on-year increase of 22.6 per cent. India's exports to China surged by 41 per cent," he said.
Addressing an august gathering to mark the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China at a hotel in Kolkata, Xu also said that Chinese President Xi Jinping and PM Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting on September 12 in New Delhi, where the most important consensus they reached is that "China and India should be partners".
Xu also informed that the commencement of the China Southern Airlines direct flight between Guangzhou and New Delhi will further facilitate people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
"In the first half of this year, China's GDP reached 10.42 trillion US dollars. This represents a year-on-year increase of 4.7 per cent. Total import and export volume exceeded about 3.73 trillion US dollars, for the first time in the same period on record. New growth drivers, represented by high-end manufacturing, the digital economy, and modern services, contributed more than 40 per cent to China's economic growth," he said.
The Consul General also informed how Chinese President Xi, who attended the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, recently, stressed that BRICS must stand firmly on the right side of history.
"During the summit, President Xi proposed several initiatives. These include the open source and inclusive AI initiative, the digital
industry cooperation initiative, and the intelligent manufacturing cooperation initiative," he said.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.