Opening the first ever India-Russia-China summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin [Images] on Monday said the three neighbouring nuclear powers have "practically identical" views on major global problems and expressed satisfaction at the coordination of efforts by them.

"Our approaches on key world problems are very close or as the diplomats say, practically identical," Putin said opening the trilateral meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Putin expressed satisfaction that the three powers of the same region "manage to coordinate their efforts on the international scene."

Hosting his Indian and Chinese colleagues in the ornate Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg [Images] suburb Strelna, Putin lauded India and China's "colossal" contribution in world development, global economy and invited them to exchange views.

Putin noted that Monday's trilateral summit was the "natural outcome" of the work started by the foreign ministers of the three nations, who have had two meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York and in 2005 had a standalone meet in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.

Later, welcoming Dr Singh for a separate bilateral meeting, Putin said the trilateral India, Russia [Images], China summit "demonstrates our concerns at the problems of Asian development and we are looking for new mechanisms to resolve them".