The China-India Development Forum will be held Tuesday, March 30, at Jianguo Garden Hotel in Beijing to mark the 60th anniversary of China-India diplomatic relations.

With a theme of India and China: Building the Future Together, the forum aims to encourage better development of bilateral ties. It will discuss issues of common interests to enhance mutual understanding through media dialogues and economic promotion.

Discussion topics will include developing bilateral relations, the media's role in bilateral ties, economic exchanges and mutual benefits.

The forum is sponsored by China International Publishing Group, organized by China Internet Information Center and China Development Gateway, and guided by China's State Council Information Office.

Founded in January 1949, CIPG is China's oldest and largest publishing company focused on overseas audiences. Over the past 60 years, it has endeavored to present the real China to India through books, magazines and, more recently, Web sites, to deepen understanding and communication between the two countries.

CIIC (hosting china.org.cn and china.com.cn) is a state news Web site, published with support from the State Council Information Office and CIPG. Established in 1997, it is the only online news and information platform that provides services in 10 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Korean and Esperanto.

The forum will also cover issues of non-governmental and cultural exchanges and communication between the youth generations.

The forum will be attended by Wang Chen, minister of the State Council Information Office, Indian Ambassador to China S. Jaishankar, CIPG President Zhou Mingwei, CIIC President Huang Youyi, and CIIC Vice President Li Jiaming. Representatives from diplomatic, economic, cultural fields and media organizations in the two countries will also be present.

Both China and India are large developing nations in Asia and home to 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the world's population. As two emerging powers, China and India have cooperated through many mechanisms such as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the basic four (China, Brazil, India and South Africa), the developing five (China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico) and the China-Russia-India troika. More cooperation and exchanges are expected from both official and non-governmental levels as they face the same opportunities and challenges.

(China.org.cn by Zhou Jing March 26, 2010)