Mumbai: Chinese President Hu Jintao wound up a trust-building visit to India on Thursday with a call for the two Asian giants to strengthen energy and infrastructure ties and invest more heavily in each other's economy.
Hu told business leaders in Mumbai, that both sides must liberalise their trade environments further and coordinate more closely within the World Trade Organisation.
"We want to encourage competitive Chinese firms to invest in India and more Indian companies to invest in China," he said.
"If India and China work together, the 21st century will belong to Asia."
Hu's trip, which began in New Delhi late on Monday, did not yield any landmark pronouncements. Instead, both sides have focused on discussions to further economic relations, sweep away mistrust and speed up efforts to resolve a decades-old dispute over their 3,500-km Himalayan frontier.
The visit, the second ever by a Chinese president, was punctuated by Tibetan activists demonstrating against what they say is China's illegal occupation of Tibet.
One protester set himself on fire outside the luxury waterfront hotel where Hu was staying on Thursday, before being taken away by police.
India has been wary of China's close ties with Pakistan while Beijing is known to be concerned about New Delhi's growing proximity to Washington. Hu is due to travel to Islamabad later on Thursday.
In business, India is envious of the billions of dollars pumped in to build up China's infrastructure and fears giving more access to Chinese goods will undermine its own industries.
Chinese firms, for their part, complain that Indian officials have blocked potential investment in areas like ports and telecommunications on the grounds of security concerns.
As two of the world's fastest-growing economies, both have rising energy demands and have been competing for stakes in oil and gas projects abroad.
Hu said there is need to strengthen cooperation in key areas like information technology (IT) and infrastructure and to bid together for energy projects in third countries.
Both sides agreed earlier this week to try and double bilateral trade to $40 billion by 2010, and Trade Minister Kamal Nath said he was targeting investment between the neighbours to touch $5 billion by the same year.
Total bilateral investment between India and mainland China has been less than $200 million over the last 10 years.
"India welcomes Chinese investment and Chinese strength in infrastructure and project management and India's strength in IT should be synergised," Nath told the conference.
India and China also called for a resumption of global trade talks which stalled last July over differences on farming between the European Union, the United States and developing nations like India.
A joint statement said they were willing to talk to trading partners "to ensure a successful conclusion" to the Doha round of trade talks.
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