SINGAPORE: For centuries, devout Indian Hindus have said their daily prayers before images of their favourite idols carved out of metal or clay by village craftsmen. Nowadays, factories in agnostic, communist China are producing Ganesha, Krishna and other idols out of plastic and porcelain at such low costs and high quality that Indians are lapping them up. India’s newfound love for mass-produced, “Made in China” images of idols is driving many in the poorest sections of the nation’s traditional idol-making industry out of business, repeating a pattern seen in its toy-making industry.

But, far from causing a trade spat on the lines of the one between China and the United States, the growing trade is leading businessmen on the two sides to work together to exploit the potential of each other’s markets and to dominate global trade.

“India is our biggest market,” said Lin Yipeng, whose China-based company exported $2 million of Indian idols to India last year. “We send containers to Mumbai, to Delhi, to Chennai every week and we’re doing very well. Everyone wants them because their design and quality is very nice.”

Only last month, Chinese and Indian textile manufacturers discussed in Mumbai how they could cooperate to maximise their advantages and corner a larger share of the world market for textiles and garments.

In contrast, officials from China and the European Union were locked in intense negotiations on Monday to end a dispute over textile trade quotas.

Many analysts see the growing trade ties between China and India — home to more than a third of the world’s population — as signalling a shift in the global economic power balance.

Just $50 million or so of goods and services were traded between India and China in 1990. By 2000, trade was still below $3 billion. But, with annual growth rates of 30 per cent over the past eight years, two-way trade swelled to $13.6 billion in 2004.

China surpassed the United States as India’s biggest source of imports last year, although the United States remains India’s biggest trade partner.

Clyde Prestowitz, a trade adviser to the Ronald Reagan administration and an Asia specialist, says China and India doing more business with each other signals the end to 600 years of Western dominance of global commerce.—Reuters