Changsha hosted a dialogue for enterprises from Hunan province and India on April 11 to 12, providing a platform for the two sides to seek more cooperation.

Representatives from more than 140 Chinese and Indian corporations attended the event, exploring fields such as tourism, real estate, electronic commerce, foreign trade, telecom and energy.

Hunan province has taken a major part in China-India cooperation. Altogether 17 Hunan-based enterprises have invested $48.65 million in India. "Hunan province has both industrial and resource advantages and it maintained an annual growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2015. There is still broad cooperation space between the two sides," said Xu Xiangping, head of the Hunan Provincial Commerce Department, when addressing the India delegation at the dialogue.

India has maintained a high economic growth rate over recent years and based on its population and size, it's a significant market for Chinese enterprises, said Chen Peiliang, senior vice president of Zoomlion, the Chinese construction equipment maker.

The Changsha High-tech Zone has contributed a fair share to Hunan-India economic trade partnership. The total export-import volume in the zone to and from India reached $58 million in 2015 and is expected to hit $70 million this year.

"Enterprises in the zone, such as Zoomlion, Changsha Sinocare and Broad Homes have established extensive business markets in India, and 37 of them have set up trade partnerships with India," said Zhou Qingnian, head of the zone's administrative committee.

Salman Khurshid, former Foreign Minister of India, said at the gathering that the fields in which he's most interested to see bilateral cooperation include environmental protection, housing and improvement of habitation environments, at which the Hunan enterprises excel. The Chairman and editor-in-chief of Global Dialogue Review Moses Manoharan expressed his hope to cooperate with Chinese energy industry corporations through this dialogue.

The China India Corporate Dialogue is jointly organized by the Hunan Commerce Department, India's consulate-general in Guangzhou, the Changsha High-tech Zone Administrative Committee, Changsha's Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and India's Global Dialogue Review.