Thursday, April 6 2006 15:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: China today (Apr 6, 2006) announced that a vital trade market on the strategic Sino-India border along Sikkim would open twice a week from June, setting up the first direct trade link between the two countries since the 1962 war.

"The 6,400-sq-mt market, named Dongqinggang, is located by the mountain road 16 kms from the 4,545-mt high Nathu La Pass, where Yatung County of China's Tibet Autonomous Region and India's Sikkim State meet," the official Xinhua news agency reported, signalling that China has recognised Sikkim as part of India.

According to the plan, the market would open twice a week from June for four hours a day after its construction is completed, the report from Lhasa, Tibet's capital, said.

"Construction is going on at a brisk pace and 60 per cent of it has been completed. Everything should be finished before the deadline," said Basang Cering, an official of Yatung County, also the Chief Director at the construction site.

Construction of roads leading to Nathu La Pass is also under way, but is often clogged by heavy snows. A total of 1,550 workers are now working on the site to try to finish it in time.

Nathu La Pass, which used to be a 'hot spot' for trade between China and India, took over 80 per cent of their total border trading volume at the beginning of the 20th century. But trading over the Pass was suspended in 1962.

Four decades later, China and India signed a memorandum in 2004 to resume trading at the Nathu La Pass and, in the ensuing year, China's State Council, the cabinet, approved the construction of a trade market near the Pass.

The decision to resume trade between India and China through Nathula was first taken in 2003 during the historic visit of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Beijing.

South Block had interpreted Nathu-La's acceptance as the Indian trade point to be Beijing's first step towards fully recognising Sikkim as an integral part of India.

Later in 2003, during the ASEAN Summit in Bali, attended by both Vajpayee and Wen, Beijing had informed India about Sikkim's removal from the Chinese Foreign Ministry's website.

This was a significant step as it meant China no longer regarded Sikkim as a 'separate country'.

Sikkim became India's 22nd state in 1975 and merged with the Indian Union after a referendum overwhelmingly supported the move. But China, which took over Tibet in 1959 and regarded Sikkim as a part of Tibet, alleged the merger was an 'annexation'.

The two countries went to war in 1962 on the boundary issue.

India and China now agree that Sikkim 'has ceased to be an issue' in bilateral ties.