Chidambaram, who met his counterpart Jin Renqing, Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng and visited the Suzhou Industrial Park in neighbouring Jiangsu province and the booming Pudong financial district, is of the view that India has to learn a lot from Chinese experience in developing its economy at a fast pace.
"Most of our major companies are here, manufacturing, food processing, software and energy. I think it is an opportunity to showcase what we can do," Chidambaram, who inaugurated the third 'Made in India' show in Shanghai on Monday, told PTI.
The presence of over 60 Indian trade and industry organisations at the MMI show will contribute to harnessing business opportunities between India and China, he said, congratulating the Confederation of Indian Industry for organising the event for the last three years in a row.
He was of the view that more than what India can teach the Chinese it was up to the Indians to learn more from China.
"More than what we tell or teach them (the Chinese), we have a lot to learn and imbibe," said Chidambaram, who represented India at the just-concluded G-20 meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Xianghe city in north China.
The minister also spend time to see the Chinese capital city's fast-paced changes as it races to host the 2008 Olympic Games.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, who inaugurated the G-20 meeting, told the Finance Ministers from around the world that China has set the goal of building a 'moderately prosperous' society in an all-round way.
"We intend to bring our gross domestic product up to around $4 trillion and per capita GDP to around $3,000 within the next 15 years," said Hu, who is the General Secretary of ruling Communist Party of China.
Chidambaram, who is visiting China after a long gap, said that India and China have economies that compete with each other, but there are also significant complementarities. "There is ample opportunity and space in the international economy for both our growing economies," he said at the MII inaugural.
The Joint Declaration of June 2003 between India and China underlines their shared belief that the continued expansion and intensification of economic cooperation is essential for strengthening bilateral relations.
The Finance Minister was optimistic that in 2005, the India-China bilateral trade will cross the $16 billion compared to last year's $13.6 billion.
"We can indeed draw a certain amount of satisfaction from the positive momentum in our bilateral trade. Yet, both countries need to examine closely the narrow composition of the trade basket and the insufficient use of each other's comparative advantages," he told captains of Indian industry.
"For sustainable high volumes, diversification of the trade basket is not only important but imperative," he said.
Chidambaram said the two countries can benefit from expanding and diversifying sectors like agriculture, dairy industry, food processing, auto components, healthcare, pharma, machine tools and information technology.