China and India started the "Year of Friendship Through Tourism"
in New Delhi Wednesday with the presence of visiting Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing and his Indian counterpart Pranab
Mukherjee.
The tourism departments of the two countries released a joint
logo for the "China-India Year of Friendship Through Tourism" at
the opening ceremony, which is made up of Chinese landmark the
Great Wall and India's Taj Mahal as well as the two national
flags.
China and India agreed to launch this campaign as one of the key
efforts to deepen the strategic and cooperative partnership, said
Li when addressing the ceremony.
Tourism will help people know more about each other, sustain the
traditional friendship and enhance interactions between two
civilizations, he said, adding that being the countries with
splendid culture and rich tourism resources China and India shared
a sound basis and great potential to develop tourism and
cooperation in other cultural fields.
"Last year about 450,000 Chinese and Indians visited each
other's countries but this was still a small number compared with
our total population of 2.4 billion," Li said.
The two sides need to redouble efforts to increase exchanges, he
said.
India welcomes more and more Chinese tourists, said Mukherjee at
the ceremony.
Through tourism people of the two countries will rediscover each
other's culture heritage and traditional connection, which is to
improve the bilateral ties, he said.
During the "China-India Year of Friendship Through Tourism" the
two sides will work to improve exchanges between tourism
industries, including several familiarity tours of tourism
officials and industry people from both countries, said Ambika
Soni, Indian minister of tourism and culture, who also attended the
opening ceremony.
According to the agreement reached when President Hu Jintao
visited India last November, China will set up a tourism office in
India while India will open the same office in China.
Indian tourism departments have started several initiatives to
promote India among Chinese tourists, including launching
introduction of India's tourist destinations in Chinese on its
official website and in CDs as well as Indian tourist maps in
Chinese.
(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2007)
