Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh also agreed in a joint communique to push Indian exports to China in an effort to bridge a trade surplus of around 20 billion dollars a year in China's favour.

The talks came on the second day of Wen's visit -- his first to India in five years -- for which he led a delegation of 400 Chinese business leaders.

Trade between the world's two fastest-growing major economies totalled 42 billion dollars last year and is expected to reach 60 billion dollars in the current fiscal year to March.

Since arriving in India, Wen's delegation has struck deals worth 16 billion dollars.

The joint communique made no mention of any breakthrough on a host of sensitive issues that have prevented India-China relations from casting off years of suspicion and mutual distrust.

One constant thorn has been a bitter and seemingly intractable dispute over areas of their common Himalayan border, which triggered a brief but bloody war in 1962.

Thursday's meeting only managed to reaffirm a commitment to resolving the issue -- already the subject of 14 rounds of fruitless talks -- at "an early date".

India fears China is becoming more assertive about its territorial claims.

Beijing complained bitterly last year over visits to the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh -- which China claims in full -- by Prime Minister Singh and the Dalai Lama.

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader has lived in India since fleeing as an uprising against Chinese rule failed in 1959 and his presence in the country is an irritant for Beijing.

Police arrested several Tibetan exiles protesting outside the venue of the talks, and at street demonstrations on Wednesday effigies of Wen were burned.

Other sensitive issues include China's close relations with India's arch-rival Pakistan and its insistence on issuing special stapled visas for Indian Kashmiris -- a practice seen as challenging Indian sovereignty over the disputed region.

Briefing reporters, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said these had been raised but with no agreement on how to reach a solution beyond further discussions.

China has also been reluctant to back India's drive for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and Thursday's communique simply stated its support for India to "play a greater role" at the world body.

However, it did outline Beijing's support for a UN resolution demanding sanctions against the Pakistan-based militant group, Lakshar-e-Taiba, which India blames for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Wen was due to fly to Pakistan at the end of his India visit on Friday.

In a speech on Thursday, Wen said India and China's size, proximity and growing importance would inevitably throw up challenges.

"We are both big nations, so it's quite natural we have certain points where we don't agree," he said, adding that resolving the border dispute would "require patience".

"We are friends, not rivals. We will always be friends, never be rivals."

His comments jarred with the assessment just days before by China's ambassador to India that bilateral ties were "very fragile and easy to break".

Commenting for the India side, Rao insisted that the relationship was "robust" enough to withstand disagreement.

"I certainly don't subscribe to any extreme judgments about fragility. This is not a relationship made of Chinese porcelain," she said.

Several commentators had urged Singh to take a tough line with his guest, saying India has been too accommodating of Chinese provocations in the past.

"Successive Indian governments have tried to cast aside irritants and make nice with China," said Brahma Chellaney, author of "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan".

"But that clearly hasn't worked. In fact, the feckless approach has only encouraged Beijing to up the ante by finding new ways to needle India," Chellaney said.

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