At a time when everybody’s tilting their champagne glasses, toasting the rise of the Asian century, its sometimes time to get a reality check too. We all say, think & feel that India and China have more to gain by working together, yet security concerns keep the two countries from co-operating in trade.

Sify, recently announced that New Delhi is dragging their feet on granting permission to Liaohe Petroleum Exploration Bureau (LPEB), a Chinese seismic survey firm of the country’s hydrocarbons exploration and production giant CNPC, who wants to open offices in Kolkata and Chennai.

“Most of the state-owned Chinese companies have links with China’s intelligence services. We cannot jeopardise our country’s strategic and security interests,” a senior official in the home ministry told sify on the condition of anonymity.

“Since Chinese companies are now bidding for port projects in our neighbourhood, there is a chance that Liaohe Petroleum could misuse its office and give crucial oceanographic data of Indian waters to their navy,” the official added.

On an earlier occasion, the state-run Indian hydrocarbons major Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) had to cancel a $370.8-million seismic data acquisition contract that was awarded to Liaohe Petroleum. This contract pertained to blocks in the Krishna-Godavari basin, off the Andhra Pradesh coast, and the Chinese company could not secure statutory clearances for undertaking the seismic survey on time.

The government withheld clearances after the home ministry raised concerns over the security implications in allowing Chinese vessels to undertake surveys along the country’s shoreline.

In a similar development, clearance to Harbin Power Engineering Company of China for electrical and mechanical works at the 1,154-mw Kotli Bhel hydro project in Uttarakhand has been pending for around a year.

Some other Chinese companies like Dongfang Electric Corp have also faced hurdles in securing permission for participating in hydro-electric power projects in the country.
In the telecommunications sector, big Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE Technologies had either faced inordinate delays in getting nods for investing in the country, or been simply denied permission.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 4:10 pm and is filed under setting up in India, Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.