The warning came in a joint statement after a meeting between Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy head of India's planning commission, and Japanese economy minister Akira Amari

"Humanity faces a very important challenge of concurrently achieving response to climate changes and sustainable economic development," they said.

The two sides agreed to establish individual goals and voluntary action plans to improve energy efficiency and boost cooperation in the development of renewable fuel sources.

Cooperation between the two countries on energy projects would be "mutually beneficial," they said in a statement.

Amari is on an official five-day visit which began against the backdrop of talks on a free trade agreement in the Indian capital last week that ended with big differences.

New Delhi demanded extra safeguards for its domestic industry but Tokyo opposed such concessions.

India and Japan had agreed to launch negotiations on an economic partnership pact after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Tokyo last year.

During his visit, Amari will review the progress of the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India's Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.

India's exports to Japan in 2005-06 totalled 2.4 billion dollars while imports stood at 3.5 billion dollars. Indo-Japanese trade has been growing at over 20 percent annually in recent years.

Major Indian exports are gems and jewellery, iron ore and marine products while Japanese imports include machinery, electronic goods and iron and steel.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.