As Singh, accompanied by a high-profile business delegation, begins his maiden three-day visit from January 13, the Indian industry also expects that the visit would further boost Chinese investment in India in sectors such as roads, power, highways, urban infrastructure and manufacturing.

“Indian businesses have grown manifolds since the last visit of the Indian Prime Minister in 2003. Since then, Indian businesses have increasingly explored the opportunities in China in various sectors,” Madhav Sharma, Chief Representative of CII’s China office in Shanghai, said.

The bilateral trade is at USD 34 billion, a 10-fold jump since 2002, with a growing trade deficit between the two countries. It is expected to reach USD 40 billion or more by 2010.

“This shows that Indian and Chinese businesses are increasingly collaborating and cooperating. But, at the same time, the potential is huge,” Sharma said.

Reflecting the depth of the business content to the visit, the high-power delegation led by Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, includes heavyweights covering a broad spectrum of sectors such as automotive, telecom, engineering, construction, information technology, education, tourism, airlines, media and entertainment where growth opportunities exist.

The team includes Pawan Kant Munjal, Managing Director and CEO of Hero Honda Motors; Subhash Chandra, Chairman of Zee Entertainment Enterprises; Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways; Syamlal Gupta, Chairman, Tata International; R J P Nayak, Member of the Board, Larsen & Toubro; R S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT Limited.

The Prime Minister will address the ‘China-India Economic and Trade, Investment and Cooperation Summit’ in Beijing on January 14.

“We are very excited about the visit of the Prime Minister of India to China. The bilateral trade between India and China is growing very quickly and for this year we see it touching USD 37 billion.

“We are sure the visit will further the political, economic, cultural and people-to-people understanding between our two countries,” Atul Dalakoti, Executive Director of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) China, said.

Sharma said Indian investments now stood at more than USD 500 million. “We expect these figures to go up substantially and we expect more Indian companies making investments in areas of automotive components, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, education, Information Technology, engineering, food processing and financial services.”