NEW DELHI, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese ambassador to India Zhang Yan Monday proposed that China and India make more efforts to develop economic ties.

At a meeting on China-India relations attended by Indian National Security Advisor S. Menon, the ambassador said the Chinese side is fully aware of the necessity to narrow the trade gap between the two sides in order to ensure the sustainability of bilateral trade cooperation.

"China will take measures to increase the import of Indian products which have market demand in China. But our cooperation should not be limited in trade only," said the ambassador.

He suggested that China and India should diversify their trade structure, expand the scope and items, and increase the technical content and added value to the products, while expanding into financial, service and investment sectors.

The envoy said China and India should initiate policy dialogue and coordinate their economic development strategy in order to ensure steady growth of respective economy, encourage mutual investments, consider the free trade agreement or regional trade arrangement, and increase tourism cooperation.

Zhang said that as an encouraging sign of economic ties, the bilateral trade volume is set to hit 70 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, an over 20 percent increase over the previous years, while China set up its first branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Mumbai last year.