BANGALORE, India - The foreign ministers of India, China and Russia met Tuesday for a trilateral meeting in Bangalore to boost ties between the emerging market giants, officials said.

Climate change, world trade and the global financial crisis were likely to be high on the agenda and the three were expected to issue a joint declaration later in the day.

The meeting of the countries - normally grouped together with fellow emerging giant Brazil as BRIC - brought together Russia's Sergei Lavrov, India's S.M. Krishna and China's Yang Jiechi.

Sino-Indian ties have been hit recently by a spat over plans for Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit an Indian state at the heart of a border dispute between the neighbours.

China regards the Dalai Lama, who has lived in northern India for decades, as a "splittist" bent on independence for Tibet.

But Shashi Tharoor, India's deputy foreign minister, struck an upbeat note as the talks opened.

"Things seem to be very good," he told the NDTV news channel in reference to relations between India and China, adding that "minor irritants in any case have been blown out of proportion" by the host nation's media.

Krishna and Lavrov met in Moscow on October 21, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the weekend on the margins of an ASEAN summit.