Sibal

New Delhi, Nov. 17: India and China today pledged to work towards their first joint science and technology programmes, cautiously listing biotechnology and information technology among sectors for likely cooperation.

Top Indian science officials, led by science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, met a Chinese delegation here and decided to set up a joint steering committee to promote collaboration across broad areas of science.

The Chinese team, led by Chen Zhilli, state councillor for science and technology, told Indian officials China was keen on collaborating with India in biotechnology, medicine, information technology and space research.

Indian officials described the meeting as ?significant? because this is the first visit to India by such a high-ranking, cabinet-level Chinese science official. But they cautioned that it was still too early to list specific projects or to say how much funding would be available.

Although Indian science departments have earlier signed agreements with Chinese agencies, cooperation has been confined to exchange visits by scientists or joint workshops. ?Some 15 to 20 scientists from India or China travel to the other country on exchange visits each year,? said an Indian official. ?But such visits should ideally progress towards joint research projects.?

Sibal said the countries would seek to ?synergise their strengths?. In information technology, this could mean projects in which India would contribute through its software prowess while China would work on the hardware component.

Giving an example of how this could pan out, India?s science and technology secretary V.S. Ramamurthy said the design of microprocessor chips for industry applications could be carried out in India, while fabrication of the chips could be done in China.

In biotechnology, Indian officials said China has expressed interest for joint research in vaccines, diagnostics and agricultural biotechnology. Both have vast human resources and networks of scientific institutions. If they could pool together human talent and infrastructure to generate intellectual property, ?it would be a win-win situation for both?, India?s biotechnology secretary Maharaj Bhan said.

?The key to partnerships will lie in getting the right teams of scientists to formulate joint programmes,? he added.

The Chinese officials who visited software and pharmaceutical industries in India said Beijing is particularly interested in understanding how India formulates policies for growth in the software and biotechnology sectors.