Indian business people at a trade show in Beijing.
M.V. Rabade's trip to Yunnan province at the beginning of April was memorable, not only because of the breathtaking landscape, but also the mature infrastructure development in the country's southwest province.
He got a call from his boss at 16,000 feet while he was climbing the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The cell phone signal was perfectly clear. And before returning to Beijing, he printed out all the pictures in Lijiang, an ancient town 600 km from Kunming, capital city of the province.
"That's what we want to have in India," said Rabade, chief representative of Adani Group in China. Adani is one of India's largest international trading and infrastructure development companies.
Power shortage is a chronic problem facing India for a long time while China is moving much faster in infrastructure development.
"India and China both need each other for growth," Rabade said. "Chinese capital and technology are both well suited for the Indian market."
While the global financial crisis is certain to hammer the GDP growth drastically across North America and Europe, China and India have been appearing, side by side, on news media more frequently than ever.
The two countries have been hunting in the US to recruit high-end talent after Wall Street axed more than 100,000 jobs. Media reports said the financial crisis might be the best opportunity for China and India to find experienced talent for their own financial institutions.
Both the countries will be the only two big economic powerhouses to maintain at least 5 percent GDP growth while most of the Western countries may see a negative growth. The two countries, which are home to one-third of the world's population, are also pursuing a bigger say in multilateral financial discussions and relevant policy-making processes.
"In this time of global financial and economic crisis, there is need for stronger cooperation and coordination between India and China," Nirupama Rao, India's ambassador to China, said recently at a seminar in Beijing.
In fact since external demand drives a major part of Asia's growth, the region's two giants - China and India - are also seeing their rapid economic development curtailed by the global downturn.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has forecast that developing Asia's economic growth would slow by almost half this year. The government stimulus packages are expected to help China's economy grow by 7 percent this year, which is well below the average 10 percent growth seen in recent years. India's economy is expected to grow at 5 percent this year, also far below its average 9 percent growth in the past few years, ADB said.
"A global crisis requires a global solution. A global cooperation rather than retreating from globalization is the best approach to solving the crisis," Rao said.
