KAZAN, October 8. /TASS/. Tatarstan is working to increase the number of joint IT projects with India, and companies need to study each other's markets better, Bulat Gabdrakhmanov, deputy head of the republic’s Ministry of Digital Development, told TASS on the sidelines of the TIME: Russia-India. Mutual Efficiency business forum.

"Cooperation in IT [between Tatarstan and India] is still in the bud. The first area [of cooperation development] is, of course, to have more joint projects between Russia and India. Because until they do some new projects together, they won't start to understand each other's markets," Gabdrakhmanov said.

According to him, an agreement will be signed at the forum, under which it is planned to launch a special platform for business. “Indian companies that want to enter the Russian market can apply at any time. Conversely, Russian companies and Tatarstan’s companies that want to enter the Indian market, can submit their applications there,” he said.

He noted that there are already residents of the Innopolis special economic zone who have exported their IT solutions to India. Indian companies are also expected to open representative offices in Tatarstan. "There are isolated examples of this, and our goal is to encourage this and start communicating more closely so that there are more such examples. <...> We are good at the digitalization of medicine and public services, and we can share all this experience," he said.

The first business forum TIME: Russia - India. Mutual Efficiency is being held in Kazan on October 8-9. The forum's business program consists of sessions on key areas: investment and finance, the labor market, education and science, IT and digital technologies, medicine, the oil and gas chemical complex, agriculture, the film industry, the media sphere, and creative industries. Participants include officials from the Indian federal government and representatives of Indian state administrations. Indian Ambassador to Russia Vinay Kumar is also taking part in the forum.

TASS is the forum's information partner.