China says its investment in India crossed $8 billion

China has invested over USD eight billion in India, the highest so far, a top Chinese official today said, on the eve of the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Wuhan.

Last year, the bilateral trade between both the countries touched a historic high of USD 84.44 billion, and in the first quarter of this year, it witnessed a robust growth, netting USD 22.1 billion, up 15.4 per cent year-on-year.

"By the end of 2017, Chinese investments into India added up to more than USD eight billion, as India has become an important market for infrastructure cooperation among Chinese companies and a major investment destination," Gao Feng, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce said.

Indian and Chinese officials have been quoting varied figures about China's investments in India.

Officials say while Chinese private firms like Alibaba and Xiaomi were stepping up investments to cash in on the vast Indian market, but the big investments from the state-owned firms were yet to flow into India, despite the high profile campaign by New Delhi.

Gao's announcement came ahead of tomorrow's two-day Modi-Xi summit in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, during which the trade related issues, including over US 52 billion trade deficit, were expected to figure in their one to one talks.

India has been asking China to increase the investments to compensate for the huge trade deficit.

Gao said that as two large developing countries and major emerging market economies, China and India both have a huge domestic market.

"The economies of both countries are highly complementary to each other, creating enormous potential for cooperation," the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Gao as saying.