1.   

PM convey's concerns over trade imbalance with China to Wen

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today invited Chinese investments in the infrastructure sector while conveying India's concerns over trade imbalance to his counterpart Wen Jiabao, who said this could be addressed "gradually".India and China will be holding the second Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Delhi later this month with an aim of enhancing business engagement between the two of the fastest growing economies, significantly at a time when the western world is facing crisis.

2.   

India to join ambitious trade agreement of 16 nations

East Asian nations will tomorrow launch negotiations for the ambitious Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a mega trade agreement comprising 16 countries of the region, including India. India will be associated with the major economic bloc with an aim to boost its engagement with the countries of the region. "Tomorrow, we will participate in the seventh East Asia Summit and launch the RCEP negotiations," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here today while addressing the India-ASEAN Summit.

3.   

Exports can bounce back

Our exports have not done well in the first seven months of the current fiscal. But the arrest of the decline in October to minus 1.63 per cent is a good sign. Such a negative trend is visible in most countries, with some exceptions such as China, which clocked 11 per cent growth in exports in October. Growth in China’s exports is largely dependent on industrial output, which exhibited a 9.6 per cent increase in October, surpassing 9.2 per cent in September, a month in which exports also showed 9.9 per cent growth.

4.   

Green shoots in India-Myanmar ties

In her wide ranging interview to The Hindu, published on November 13, 2012, Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has rightly stressed, “I would like to see a closer relationship between our two peoples, because I have always felt we had a special relationship”. In the past, this special relationship existed not only at the political and cultural levels, but also in the areas of agriculture and food security.