India is moving toward expanding IT cooperation with China with the establishment of a second IT corridor in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou Province.

　　Deals worth about 36 million yuan ($5.598 million) from three projects were signed between Indian services providers and Chinese customers at the launch of the corridor on Sunday, organized by the Guiyang government and India's National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), Gagan Sabharwal, senior director of global trade development at NASSCOM, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

　　One of the projects involves an Indian company called Zeta-V, which will build a platform to match Chinese companies' IT requirements and Indian IT solution providers, he said.

　　The NASSCOM set up an IT corridor in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, on May 25, following the launch of an Indian IT hub in the city in December 2017.

　　Sabharwal said the two economic corridors are expected to combine China's manufacturing industry and India's software services, which the country is very good at.

　　He said the Guiyang economic corridor will focus on big data.

　　For example, Indian companies can provide scenario-simulation software for Chinese car manufacturers, so that when the latter conducts car-crash tests, they don't need to crash a car, he told the Global Times on Wednesday.

　　He said that 50 companies, split halfway, are expected to join the two economic corridors in the short term.

　　One company called Fugumobile, an Indian mobile marketing agency, has agreed to set up a branch in the Guiyang corridor, Sabharwal said, adding more are expected to follow.

　　Comparative advantage

　　Liu Xiaoxue, an associate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' National Institute of International Strategy, said that many Indian IT-related companies are doing business in China.

　　"At first, they entered China with major international clients and were providing services or financing software. But they started to conduct independent businesses with Chinese companies, like helping build India-based research centers for Chinese companies entering the Indian market," Liu noted.

　　A Chinese national who has been engaged in engineering management in India since 2015 told the Global Times on condition of anonymity on Wednesday that India is particularly good at software outsourcing, led by Bangalore companies. They offer a relatively reasonable price for those services compared with companies from other countries.

　　"Also, if they come to China, the financing channels, as well as China's rich business ecosystem, are there for them to explore. I guess they will also expand from IT to other sectors," he said.

　　Liu said that developing IT ties between the two large economies can help ease the trade gap between India and China, which the Indian government has been protesting for quite some time.

　　"Acquiring services from India is one way of easing the trade gap. And developing tourism can be a particular good solution," Liu said.

　　In April, China imported $1.6 billion worth of goods from India while exporting $5.89 billion in goods to India, customs data shows.