"The trade target of $60 billion by 2010 set by our two prime ministers is very likely to be surpassed before 2010," Mukherjee, who is on a four-day visit to China, said at the inauguration of the Consulate General of India in the booming Guangzhou city of Guangdong province.
Mukherjee said Guangdong province, which accounts for one-third of China's total foreign trade, had always been at the forefront of the country's economic reform and opening to the outside world.
"There is tremendous interest in India to learn from your experiences, including your remarkable success in developing your Special Economic Zone," he said. He said Indian firms had invested in China, including in the Pearl River Delta, and "this trend is likely to escalate in the coming years".
Noting that China was India's largest trading partner, the minister said "if India and China are to grow together, as your President Hu Jintao said during his visit to India, our economic and commercial relationship must become the firm foundation for such growth."
Encouraged by the flourishing trade, during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January, the two countries had set the $60 billion target by 2010. The trade between the two Asian giants is now around $40 billion.
