Making its presence felt at China's biggest IT fare with a high-power delegation, India on Monday asked Beijing to deliver on its commitment to open up huge IT sector to Indian firms to bridge the yawning trade gap.

Leading the Indian IT delegation, which included NASSCOM President Som Mittal and top officials of major IT companies, Indian Ambassador S Jaishankar said that it is the time China should open its markets, like India did to Chinese products.

"We represent an industry symbolised by Bangalore. It has clocked revenues of USD 76 billion last year which is expected to grow to USD 225 billion by 2020. It employs 2.5 million workers, includes more than 5000 companies, and services almost 70 nations in 35 different languages," Jaishankar said.

"Our presence in Nanjing today is a serious statement of this industry's interest in China," he said in his address at the inauguration of seventh China International Software Product Expo at Nanjing.

"The big missing piece in the industry's global portfolio is business from Chinese companies, particularly State-owned enterprises. This is significant in itself but even more noticeable against a backdrop of surging India-China economic cooperation," he said.

These very Chinese companies are actually those that are taking our trade to the USD 70 billion level this year, making India China's 7th largest export destination, he said. "We strongly believe that an IT relationship with India will not only help them become more global and efficient but also greatly enhance their connectivity with the Indian economy," he said.

Nanjing expo is regarded as the one of the two biggest annual IT events in China. It was held against the backdrop of city's plans to emerge as a new Bangalore, carving a niche in global software industry.

Since last year, India is pressing China hard to open up its IT and pharmaceutical sectors to bring about semblance of balance as bilateral trade heavily tilted in China's favour, though it grew to a record USD 61 billion last year. India's trade deficit with China in 2010 stood at USD 20.02 billion, more than USD 15.87 billion registered in 2009.

India also held a special seminar on the sidelines of the expo during which the Indian IT companies made presentations on cloud-based computing, banking retail, retail, engineering auto sector, engineering services, e-governance and smart cities concepts.