The Hindustan Times said earlier this week that India is expected to urge China to let its IT and pharmaceutical companies have a bigger share of the Chinese market.

"China attaches great importance to the trade imbalance between the two nations," Wen said. "We'd like to help India's IT, pharmaceutical and agricultural products get into the Chinese market."

Some media have compared the two nations to a dragon and an elephant competing with each other, a notion Wen said he disagrees with.

"The world has enough room for the development of both China and India, as well as their cooperation."

"The Indian people used to be scared of China's growing power. But the mindset of many Indian businessmen has started to change," Bijendra Singh, an Indian television reporter, told China Daily.

"With such a big delegation, the premier's visit is definitely going to bring the relationship closer together."

Wen later visited the Tagore International School in the Indian capital, where he chatted with students and teachers and gave a lesson on Chinese calligraphy.

"I was touched by the children here who called me 'Grandpa Wen' because that's what the Chinese children call me at home," he said.

Wen said he was pleased to learn that the school will introduce Chinese to its curriculum in April, as "language is a tool for heart-to-heart communication", which he believes will help strengthen ties between the two countries.

Wen will have a tight schedule on Thursday, when he is due to meet Indian President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Singh and the ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, as well as to speak to a think tank about Beijing's policies on India.

China's manufacturing and infrastructure industries, together with India's IT, biochemistry and outsourcing industries, leave plenty of room for complementary trade development, said Hua Junduo, former Chinese ambassador to India.

However, the Sino-Indian relationship has been viewed by some as a mixture of "third-world solidarity and strategic rivalry", with the need for the two to balance each other's growing power, Jean Pierre Cabestan, a professor of international relations at Hong Kong Baptist University, told Reuters earlier this week.

Lou Chunhao, a professor of South Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, disagreed.

Despite lingering disputes between the two countries, China is trying its best to seek a win-win solution with India, he said.

"Wen's large delegation to India is a testament to that."