Xi, Modi vow close cooperation

Asian giants agree their relationship can help spur prosperity and calm an unsettled world

China and India on Friday vowed to cooperate closely amid complicated changes in the world and to handle disputes appropriately.

President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached the consensus as they met in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

Xi said that faced with profound and complex international changes, China and India, as the world's two largest developing countries, should pay more attention to cooperation. They should move forward as partners to facilitate each other's development and contribute to world peace, stability and common development, he said.

Xi said China attaches great importance to its ties with India and stands ready to work with its neighbor to enhance mutual political trust, link their development strategies, deepen practical cooperation, and maintain coordination and collaboration in international and regional affairs.

The president called for more high-level interaction, institutional exchanges, strategic communication and policy alignment between the two countries.

China and India should also boost trade and investment cooperation and work together for earlier harvests from large-scale collaborative projects in such areas as production capability, industrial parks and railway construction, he said.

Xi said the two countries should make joint efforts to promote regional connectivity and shared development, align their development initiatives, advance the building of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor with a view to substantial progress at a nearly date, and boost cooperation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.