India is to send representatives from large-scale IT enterprises to participate in a Sino-India IT cooperation forum in east China's Nanjing city in September, so business people can discuss hardware and software cooperation, an Indian commerce official said Tuesday.

Atul Dalakoti, executive director of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, spoke at a press conference on the Nanjing Golden Autumn Economic and Trade Fair.

He said China and India were friendly neighbors with huge cooperation potential. The geographic advantage and potential trade markets had provided foundation for the bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

He noted that in the information technology field, China was not only a hardware manufacturing base, but also a country growing fast in software production. Chinese and Indian enterprises had very broad prospects for IT cooperation, he said.

In recent years, Sino-India cooperation in IT, biologicaltechnology and medical science flourished as bilateral trade volume increased from US$1 billion in 1996 to US$5 billion in 2002. In the first quarter of this year, China and India witnessed a 70 percent increase in two-way trade volume.

The Sino-India IT cooperation forum is an important part of the Nanjing Golden Autumn Economic and Trade Fair to be held in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu province, from September 19 to October 30.

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2003)