Beijing, Jan 21 (DPA) China and Vietnam achieved "positive results" in their latest round of talks aimed at resolving long-standing border disputes, the Chinese foreign ministry said Sunday.

The two sides will speed up and complete before the end of 2008 the process of demarcation and erection of markers along their 1,400 km land border, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

Both sides also agreed to "carefully investigate joint exploitation" of the South China Sea, after three days of talks that ended Saturday in the southern city of Nanning, close to China's border with Vietnam.

China and Vietnam will also push forward negotiations on the demarcation and joint use of the maritime area at the entrance to the Beibu (Tonkin) Gulf, the statement said.

China has become Vietnam's largest trading partner since relations were normalized in 1991.

Some of the land disputes date back to 1979, four years after North Vietnam defeated the US-backed South Vietnam. Then China and Vietnam clashed along Vietnam's northern border after Vietnamese troops marched into Cambodia to topple the Beijing-supported Khmer Rouge.

Tensions still flare occasionally over the Spratley and Paracel Islands, two archipelagos in the South China Sea that are thought to be rich in gas and oil deposits.