New Delhi, March 6 (IANS): India and Portugal on Monday agreed to set up an institutional mechanism to collaborate in areas of electronic manufacturing, ITeS, start-ups, cyber security and e-governance, an official said.

"We had a very good discussion and have agreed to collaborate in the areas of electronic manufacturing, ITeS, cyber security, e-governance and capacity building. We will support the Portugal team in scaling up their initiatives -- Simplex and Portuguese Citizen Shops, which are like our MyGov and Common Service Centre initiatives," IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Prasad on Monday held a bilateral meeting with Maria Manuel Leitao Marques, Portuguese Minister of Presidency and Administrative Modernisation, ahead of the ICEGOV 2017, the 10th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, an official statement here said. 

"We also have discussed several collaborative initiatives in the domain of capacity building and cyber security to ensure safe and secure cyber space," Prasad said.

"We have also informed the Portuguese Minister that India is going to host the Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) in November 2017, which will see participation of over 100 countries with 2,000 delegates," added Prasad.

The bilateral meeting was organised within the framework of the India-Portugal Collaboration for ICEGOV 2017 that is taking place in India for the first time with the participation of key representatives from the industry, policymakers, government officials, elected representatives, researchers, innovators and educators from developing and developed countries.