Politics took a back seat and the focus was on a Sino-Indian alliance of a different kind as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday witnessed Shanghai's economic and technological miracle, on the penultimate day of his six-day official visit to China.

Vajpayee, who has made no secret of his admiration for China's economic transformation, began his official engagements with some "sightseeing" when he viewed Pu Dong special economic zone from the Oriental Pearl TV tower, not long ago the tallest building in this commercial capital of China before being relegated to the second place by the 88-storey Jing Mao hotel right next door.

It was slightly foggy but that had little impact on the Indian leader's enthusiasm as he asked questions about the economic zone located over an area of 522 square kilometres.

The zone is an exclusive club with only foreign trade corporations with an export performance of $100 million a year being allowed to set up base there.

From there, Vajpayee drove to the Shanghai International Convention Centre to address a day-long seminar on the challenges and opportunities in the IT sector for India and China.

Top honchos of the Indian IT industry and their Chinese counterparts were present as was Han Zheng, Shanghai's mayor.

It was at this function that the prime minister proposed an "effective alliance" between the two countries in the field of information technology and pointed out that India's core competence in software and China's in hardware would be complementary. This would help them face the challenge of a "digital divide" from the regional imbalances in access to technologies.

In the evening, Vajpayee and his top aides drove a short distance for a meeting with the Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai Chen Liangyu, who hosted a banquet in honour of the Indian leader. A cruise on Huang Pu river was the last public engagement on his schedule.

Before flying back to Delhi on Friday afternoon, the prime minister is likely to address a press conference, which will undoubtedly be dominated by questions on the outcome of his discussions with the Chinese leadership in Beijing, highlighted by the first-ever bilateral joint declaration and a border trade agreement that have addressed sensitive issues like the border dispute, Sikkim and Tibet.