Trade between China and India has great potential to grow, the Chinese commerce minister and Indian commerce and industry minister told a media briefing after the eighth session of the China and India Joint Economic Group, held in Beijing Tuesday.

Trade between China and India totaled $43.38 billion in 2009, an increase of 75 percent from 2006, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC) Tuesday. Currently China is India's second-largest trading partner, while India is China's ninth-largest trading partner.

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said the current size and level of bilateral economic cooperation between China and India is not in line with the two countries' economic size and the complementarity and growth potential of their economies.

Bilateral trade value in 2009 only accounted for 1.97 percent of China's total trade value for the whole year, according to the GAC. Sino-Indian trade value registered a small percentage of India's total trade value as well. From April to November 2009, India's imports and exports totaled $274.68 billion, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma showed confidence of exceeding $60 billion in Sino-India trade by 2010, a goal set by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2008.

Both Chen and Sharma encouraged more mutual investment, which remains at a low level now and has the potential to grow.

Sharma welcomed more Chinese enterprises to come to India to participate in local infrastructure construction. Income earned by Chinese enterprises from infrastructure construction projects in India totals more than $10 billion, according to Chen.

Sharma also showed concern over the imbalance in bilateral trade. He urged China to import more from India to achieve bilateral trade balance.

China's exports to India last year amounted to $29.67 billion while its imports from India registered $13.71 billion, with China's trade surplus with India exceeding $15 billion, according to the GAC.

Chen said the two countries should work together to resolve the imbalance. He stated that China encouraged Indian enterprises in sectors such as IT and pharmaceuticals to cooperate more with Chinese enterprises and to expect bigger market share in China.

The increasing trade imbalance between the two countries, if it continues, will affect overall bilateral trade, said Sun Shihai, deputy director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

India should diversify the items it exports to China, and export more high valued-added products to increase export values, Sun suggested, adding the two sides should work more to enhance trust in each other's products to foster bilateral trade.

India should hold more exhibitions in big trading partner provinces in China to enable local enterprises to understand more about Indian-made products, and China should actively organize trade and investment promotion groups to visit India as it has done to facilitate trade and investment between China and the US and Europe, Sun said.

Sun said China should pay attention not to adversely impact local employment in India while expanding outbound investment in India.