The Asian giants are posting the highest growth rates among major countries but the average Indian last year earned 700 dollars compared with China's more than 1,000 in per capita Gross Domestic Product.

"Yes, China has a head start on India and I'm not denying that but we'll catch up," Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told a news conference on a visit to Tokyo.

"If you take 700 dollars as the base and if we grow at say four and a half percent a year, it's pretty obvious that it will require about 10 to 12 years to reach a GDP of 1,000 (dollars)," Chidambaram said.

"But I expect that by the year 2015 we should reach per capita of 1,000 dollars," he said.

Indian leaders frequently contrast their country to China, hailing their democracy over Beijing's communism system, but also casting envious eyes at their giant neighbor's soaring economy.

Chidambaram said India was determined to boost manufacturing, which has provided rich dividends for China while India's star industries are Internet technology and outsourcing.

But Chidambaram, whose left-leaning government came to power in 2004 on the back of support by the rural poor, said a major focus must be agriculture -- which employs a majority of Indians but contributes just 22 percent of GDP.

He said India, which hails food self-sufficiency as one of its greatest achievements since independence in 1947, must develop more "value-added" agriculture such as processed foods for export -- and get more farmers off the land.