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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)