As the Beijing Olympics torch was successfully relayed in New Delhi the evening of April 17 Beijing time, India's largest private enterprise and exporter -- Reliance Industries Ltd. -- made a toast to hundreds of its Chinese customers and industry friends at a Shanghai reception.

The company has been supplying PP, PE and PVC to Chinese processors for many years. With two representative offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Reliance also operates five duty-free warehouses along China's eastern coastline.

At the reception, the company announced that its experienced Shanghai chief representative, S. S. Naik, is returning to the company's Mumbai headquarters to oversee the resin giant's export business. Mr. Naik's successor is Mr. Soumen Bhattacharya, Country Head--China.

Reliance is one of the six Indian exhibitors at Chinaplas, down from nine in 2007. The numbers look incredibly low compared with the total of 1,800 exhibitors, given the close trade ties between the two booming economies.

Stanley Chu, chairman of the Adsale Group, said many foreign companies are represented at Chinaplas by their Chinese operations and therefore are listed in the China category. That may explain part of it.

In the past few days I've seen plenty of Indian buyers on the show floor, a good number of whom have registered with the show -- over1,000 according to Adsale.

India has maintained a healthy trade surplus with China in the plastics sector, a good chunk of it being resin. I wonder how much of that is generated by Reliance.