Speaking at the India – China Business Cooperation Summit, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi on Wednesday, he outlined a four-pronged strategy for deepening
co-operation between India and China. Firstly, he said the current levels of bilateral trade was far below the true potential and expressed the need to explore full opportunities to achieve greater levels of bilateral trade. He also called for launching the free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between India and China.

Second, he said, creating a sound investment environment in the two countries would further deepen the partnership and called for exploring the possibility of signing a two-way investment promotion agreement. Third, he expressed the need for expanding the areas of co-operation and increasing the number of direct flights between two countries. Finally, he called for greater business to business exchange to promote business co-operation and the setting up of India – China CEO’s Forum.

“I do not agree with the notion that China and India are competitors, instead they are partners in co-operation,” he said.

Elaborating on the greater role the two countries are playing in the world affairs, the Chinese Premier said India and China can learn from
each other in dealing with the rest of the world, and added that the two can co-operate in reforming various multilateral organizations and also successfully concluding the stalled Doha Round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Encouraging the business communities of the two countries to play a greater role in deepening the bilateral ties, Jiabao expressed his commitment towards greater business co-operation and asked the
business community to “seize various opportunities that the rise of two great civilizations is offering”.

The Indian commerce and industry minister, Anand Sharma said India and China were on a journey of friendship and co-operation and added that the importance of relationship between the two countries would increase significantly in coming decades. He also talked about the presence of common interests of the two countries in deepening the co-operation.

He expressed hope that the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao would set up an even higher two-way trade target, which already stood at $ 60 billion.

Also speaking at the session, the China Interntional Trade Representative and Vice Minister of Commerce, Gao Hucheng attributed close bilateral relationship between the countries to greater business – to – business exchange and expressed commitment to attain closer business ties.

Meanwhile in another related function organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry the Vice President, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products (CCCMHPIE), Liu Zhanglin said that China and India could collaborate in joint tendering for global pharma export orders, given China’s strengths in the production of quality active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and India capability in volume production of formulations and the ability of Indian companies to prepare documentation for global tendering.

He said that very few Chinese companies were qualified to bid for global tenders. He said only two Chinese companies had been granted pre-qualification by the WHO for global tendering compared with 1,000 Indian companies. Chinese companies were also up against the language barrier, he said, adding that this could be overcome by collaborating with Indian companies.

As regards the entry of Indian companies in the Chinese market, Zhanglin said that the market demands in his country were changing and it would be critical for Indian companies to find a suitable
distribution partner. The Chinese Chamber, he said, could help locate a good distribution firm if the Indian party provided the names of the finished pharma and health products that they wished to export to China.

The Secretary General, Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association (IDMA), Daara B Patel in his presentation, spoke of a win-win collaboration that could result from a strategic partnership between India and China in the field of pharmaceuticals. Such a partnership between the two countries had the potential to propel the global pharma market to $1.1 trillion by 2014, he said.

He said that there was generics boom in China with local pharma markets in China and India being rated among the largest in the world. Further, pharma and biotech firms in both these countries have successfully broken down the self-contained innovation chain of research, development, and manufacturing segments in western multinationals. They have over 15,000 manufacturing units making
quality APIs and formulations. They export to almost all countries. Their exports were expected to grow collectively at 13 – 16%, with sales of $ 105 - 115 billion, he said.

Touching on the advantage Chinese and Indian companies would have from close collaboration, Patel said that these companies could provide
manufacturing solutions at less than 50% of overseas costs. Hiring a chemist abroad costs over $ 250,000-300,000 per year as against $ 60,000 in China and India. The Contract Research and manufacturing (CRAM) sector growing at 15%-20%; China and India can produce APIs that cost 60% less than in Europe and North America; 29% of all global manufacturing output to be produced via third parties, such as in China and India, by end-2010, as large companies continue to scale back on production and focus on core competencies and China and India had vast groups of people ideally suited for clinical trials as many of them have not been exposed to modern medicines.