New Delhi, Nov 21 (IANS): Preparing to put in place a mechanism to settle the border dispute with China, India Monday said it needed a stable arrangement on the issue that will help the two countries work together in areas of mutual interest in the global arena.

"In our dialogue with China, we needed a stable arrangement on the border so that we work towards a common agenda with China in those areas where it suits us," Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said while delivering the Fourth MEA-IISS-IDSA Foreign Policy Dialogue on the theme "Towards Stability in Asia" here.

"That helps us to a great extent and it has worked," he said, noting that there has been no failure in this regard.

In the backdrop of China's military infrastructure and capability build-up along the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control, Mathai said India too was in the process of building its own infrastructure in the area.

India and China share an unresolved 4,500-km border and are in the process of putting in place a new mechanism to talk about the dispute and to settle it at a future date. A meeting of their special reprresentatives on the border issue is to be held later this year.