Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee [ Images ] on Thursday donned the robe of a salesman of India's booming IT sector by proposing to assist Beijing [ Images ] to host the 2008 Summer Olympics [ Images ].

"The Olympic games [ Images ] in Beijing in 2008 could provide a good opportunity for Indian and Chinese IT firms to work together," Vajpayee said while addressing a mega seminar organised by National Association of Software and Service Companies in Shanghai, the communist giant's industrial and commercial hub.

Vajpayee pointed out that India's [ Images ] experience has shown that in mega events like hosting of Olympics, "a substantial proportion" of the contracts awarded to the IT sector are actually sub-contracted to Indian firms.

"Indian and Chinese firms could instead join up to provide state-of-the-art solutions at cost-effective prices, thereby also cutting out the middlemen," Vajpayee said on the penultimate day of his six-day official visit to China, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in a decade.

"We could even think of a joint institutional mechanism between the two governments which could see whether modalities could be worked out for this," he said, indicating New Delhi's [ Images ] desire to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympic process.

He also said that India has a national e-governance programme seeking to link grassroot public services with those at macro level. "Here again, India and China can share their experiences in optimising the e-governance systems," he said.