SINGAPORE India expects trade with China to reach $20 billion in "the next couple of years" as ties with its biggest neighbor strengthen, Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a conference in Singapore.
"There's enough space for developing together, growing together, not at the expense of the other, but independent of each other," Mukherjee told delegates Saturday at the conference. Trade between the two countries totaled $18 billion last year, he said.
India, Asia's fourth-biggest economy, expanded 9.3 percent in the three months ended March from a year earlier, making it the fastest-growing economy after China among the world's 20 biggest economies.
Mukherjee said that the relationship between the two nations has reached "a certain degree of maturity," and that both have worked together in defusing border tensions.
India, which is seeking permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, also wants to participate in a cooperative effort to secure the Malacca Strait, the conduit for half of India's maritime trade, Mukherjee said.
"We have welcomed the initiative taken by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore," in the Malacca Strait, Mukherjee said. "We are welcoming their suggestions" on how India can best participate to ensure security in the region.
Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, the three countries with coastlines bordering the strait, have increased patrols in the strait after a series of attacks by pirates there.
Mukherjee said that India expected support for its nuclear program, which he said is needed to ensure future economic growth for the country. "Our track record in respect of nonproliferation, exports of nuclear material and energy, is impeccable," he said.
Nuclear Power Corp. of India plans to spend $1.2 billion on a stake in a uranium mine to support an expanded atomic power program, entering international bidding for the reactor fuel by nations including China and Japan.
The uranium is needed to run about 28 reactors that India plans to build after the United States and other countries end an international embargo on the sale of atomic technology to India.
India has doubled its nuclear power generation target to 40,000 megawatts by 2020.
Mukherjee and the U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, met in Singapore over the weekend during an Asian security summit. Rumsfeld told Mukherjee that India and the United States have grown closer over the past six years.
"The relationship between the U.S. and India, from a military-to-military standpoint, has been on a steady improvement, and it is a relationship that we value a great deal," Rumsfeld said. "It's multifaceted at this stage, it involves exercises, it involves working together on problems of common interest."
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