Friday, September 8 2006 12:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beijing: India and China yesterday (Sept 7, 2006) agreed to work towards forming a four-pillar strategic partnership in the sphere of science and technology by November this year with the two sides proposing a 'marriage' of Indian expertise in software and Chinese know-how in hardware.

Visiting Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Kapil Sibal said he had proposed to his Chinese counterpart Xu Guanhua that India and China could evolve a strategic relationship based on the foundation of four pillars.

"Two of the pillars should be cooperation in the field of hi-technology, two of the pillars in the area of public good and the foundation based on the synergies of hardware from China and software from India," Sibal said.

"The foundation of this four-pillar relationship should be the marriage between hardware and software. The expertise that exist in China for hardware and the high-quality human resources that we have in India," the minister said.

Earlier, Sibal and Xu inked a MoU to set up a Steering Committee in S&T cooperation.

Describing his talks with Xu as frank and open, Sibal said the visit and talks, taking place amid the 'India-China Friendship Year 2006' have been exceptionally successful.

"We have set up a Steering Committee consisting of three people from India and three from India. They will prepare a roadmap for us before November 2006 so that when the Chinese President Hu Jintao visits India, we are able to put this strategic cooperation in the area of S&T arena on opera for the purposes of a declaration," Sibal said.

However, Sibal did not reveal the specific areas identified for bilateral cooperation as some negotiations would take place.

"I do not want to state at this point what are the areas that I have proposed, I do not want to jump the gun because there will be some negotiations that will take place," he said.

At the same time, he pointed out that both sides have agreed that they would work very hard to enable the two sides to reach an agreement on the strategic partnership before Hu's visit to India in November.

He said there was broad agreement that India, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries together represent almost half the population of the world.

"So both sides understood that we have the people and we have the market. What we need is to evolve the technology which is suitable, affordable, acceptable to the ordinary folks living in both countries," he said.

"Folks will represent the two pillars of the relationship. The other two pillars represent the area of hi-technology. In other words, how we should cooperate for cutting-edge technologies because we need China and India to compete with the world," he said.

The S&T Minister acknowledged that India-China cooperation in the scientific field has not made much headway, partly due to 'historical reasons.'

"That is why we have decided to take up these issues at the Ministerial-level," Sibal said.