Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is in New Delhi to prepare the agenda for President Vladimir Putin's three-day state visit, also said the two countries would hold their first joint military exercises in India involving paratroopers next year.

"In the coming days executive orders will be passed so that the share of Russia's side in the project will be scaled up," he said of the project to build the BrahMos cruise missile.

"India, Russia relationship has now moved from a buyer-seller relationship to joint technology development of new projects," he added.

The two sides have tested the multi-target BrahMos, which can be launched from submarine, ship, aircraft or land, three times since the start of the multi-million dollar project in 2001.

The missile, which can be launched from vertical or inclined positions, has a range of up to 280 kilometres (175 miles) and is one of the most potent cruise missiles in the armoury of both Russia and India.

"There has been happy developments and the Russian president will be visiting the BrahMos complex and it has been decided that there will be fresh investment into the project," said Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Putin was due to arrive early Friday to hold talks with leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Neither Ivanov or Mukherjee elaborated on their talks of assuring supplies of critical spares for India's Soviet origin military equipment but they said the matter, which in recent years had caused friction, had been sorted out.

"The Russian government has given an assurance that there will be a comfort period (in the supply chain)," Ivanov told reporters at a joint press conference with Mukherjee on the eve of Putin's arrival.

Seventy percent of India's military hardware is of Soviet origin and since the Soviet Union's 1991 breakup the army, navy and air force have complained of problems obtaining spares from debt-ridden Russian armament factories.

Ninety percent of hardware in the inventory of the Indian air force is of Soviet origin and on several occasions including during a near-war between India and Pakistan in 1999 Russians armament firms failed to deliver on time.

There was also no word on India's call for a breakthrough in stalled talks with Moscow to reach a tripartite pact with Israel for revamping India's fleet of Tu-142 maritime surveillance aircraft. It bought the planes from the Soviet Union in 1988.

Russia on the other hand is pressing India to sign an agreement on the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) to safeguard against military technologies jointly developed or produced under licence being copied by third countries.

Mukherjee said there was some progress on the issue.

"By January the first meeting will be held on the draft and in four-five months the draft (for an IPR treaty) should be ready," he said, without elaborating.

All rights reserved. � 2004 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.

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