"As a friendly neighbour of South Asia, we are ready to conduct exchanges and cooperation with SAARC in light of the principle of equality, mutual benefit, and win-win cooperation with a view to making positive contributions to the cooperation, development and prosperity of South Asia," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

The spokesman was commenting on the role Beijing would like to play in the regional grouping. "SAARC is an important regional cooperation organisation in South Asia," he said while pointing out that China has been following and supporting the SAARC movement.

Welcoming China's inclusion in the SAARC 2006 as an 'observer', Qin said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing was in New Delhi to represent the country at ongoing SAARC Summit.

Meanwhile, the official China Daily in an editorial, noted that "a new chapter is unfolding in relations between China and the South Asian nations" through the entry of Beijing into the SAARC movement. The status SAARC has given to China is opening one more window for cooperation between the two.

China will bring additional vitality to the association by providing a new dimension to its interactions, trade and investment, it said. "A wide range of concerns provides great potential for cooperation, such as energy, the economy and trade, human resources development and people-to-people contact," it noted.

The Chinese government has vowed to make concerted efforts with South Asian nations to promote regional peace and prosperity, the editorial noted. "Stretching from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean in the south to Nepal in the Himalayas in the north and from Pakistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, the vast region is a land of challenge and hope.

It is rich in natural resources and vast in territory and population," it noted. "SAARC was launched with a vision. Its effort to develop cooperation with countries outside South Asia will increase opportunities for the development that is vital to the region's people," it said.

Meanwhile, a Chinese scholar has noted that China has long hoped of expanding cooperation with South Asian countries, but the lack of a multilateral platform has been an obstacle to closer ties.

"SAARC is a high-level platform where China can sit with its South Asian neighbours, providing an opportunity to discuss how the countries can grow together," Lan Jianxue, a scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said.

With Asia's economic growth grabbing headlines around the globe, closer cooperation, especially between economic powerhouses such as India and China, is the surest way to maintain the momentum, he said.

Compared with the neighbouring Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SAARC has yet to become an efficient and highly integrated regional organisation despite its more than 20-year history, a separate article in the China Daily noted.

China's phenomenal economic development in recent years has prompted SAARC nations to seek closer economic ties with their land-linked giant neighbour, it added.