CALCUTTA, 20 November 2004 — India and China have signed a landmark agreement for collaboration in information technology — a key sector India is still ahead of the communist giant.
Aside from IT, Chen Zhili, China’s state councilor and most senior science official to ever visit India, and Kapil Sibal, India’s minister for science and technology, on Thursday pledged to cooperate in diverse fields like space and pharmaceutical research, disaster management, renewable energy and bio-technology.
The two countries have also set up the first joint steering committee, chaired by Chen and Sibal, for scientific cooperation. Its first meeting is scheduled to take place in Beijing next year.
An accomplished scientist, Chen visited Bangalore — India’s Silicon Valley — where she paid glowing tributes to India’s advanced computer industry and called on China and India to work closely together. She also met senior executives of Bangalore-based Infosys, best-known software firm, which is setting up a full-fledged facility in Shanghai.
Sibal said that as “India is No. 1 in terms of software and China is No.1 in hardware, we can together become No. 1 in IT”.
Chen is scheduled to call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi during her three-day goodwill visit on India’s invitation.
She is the second state councilor to visit India in quick succession. Last month, Tang Jiaxuan paid a highly publicized visit which boosted bilateral ties and apparently cleared the path for Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboao’s visit to India early next year.
A Chinese official accompanying Chen told the Indian Express newspaper that Beijing had chosen India and South Korea for stepping up scientific cooperation apart from its established links with developed countries.
Welcoming the technology handshake, Nazeeb Arif, Indian Chamber of Commerce secretary-general, said: “China is strong in hardware, their facilities, their abilities and their costs are such that they are already dominant in a large part of the manufacturing arena.”
“India is a major leader in software, we have a lot of things going for us — quality, productivity and of course cost effectiveness.”
“If we marry the two, I think particularly in certain areas like embedded software, like consumer durables which use a lot of computer technology within them, where manufacturing quantities are large and cost needs to be low and the software needs to be cleverly designed, I think the possibilities are immense.”
Analysts say that trade and economic cooperation between the nuclear neighbors have suffered immensely because of a festering border dispute and China’s military links with India’s regional rival, Pakistan.
Ironically, Taiwan’s National Science Council has just announced plans to open a science and technology division in New Delhi, according to the Taipei Times. The newspaper reported that staff from the council will collaborate with Indian researchers in fields including energy, aerospace, information technology and communications.
“Taiwan’s experience in building technology clusters (science parks) might interest India,” Council Deputy Minister Shieh Ching-jyh told the Taipei Times.
Pacts to Be Signed With Russia
Officials in New Delhi meanwhile said India and Russia are putting final touches to new visa, energy, banking and space research pacts to be signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s December visit.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov whose visit is aimed at laying the groundwork for Putin’s visit to the Indian capital next month said he was “extremely happy” with his meetings in India.
“The presidential visit is likely to materialize in memorandums of understanding (MOUs) being signed in the banking, joint space research, information technology and communication fields,” said Zhukov.
“There is growing interest among Russian businessmen in India in the infrastructure and high technology areas,” he added. “Russia is ready to develop cooperation in fields of energy in various ways like participating in thermal and nuclear power plants.”
Zhukov co-chaired an Indo-Russian panel on trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation, which would finalize the economic agenda of Putin’s visit.
