Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi called Monday for a quick end to a European Union arms embargo on China as he wrapped up a six-day visit largely geared toward beefing up bilateral trade.

"Italy... leans to lifting the embargo of arms sales to China," Prodi told journalists in Beijing. "We should resolve this issue as quickly as possible because it can't wait."

Prodi was speaking in the Great Hall of the People, just west of Tiananmen Square, the plaza that gave name to the 1989 democracy protests whose bloody suppression triggered the embargo.

The Italian leader had just overseen the signing of 15 agreements covering a wide range of bilateral issues with his host, Premier Wen Jiabao.

France is the prime European supporter of lifting the ban, arguing it would be a mostly symbolic recognition of China's growing clout, while Italy has so far appeared to be among the less vocal nations.

However, in late 2004, Gianfranco Fini, Italy's then foreign minister, was quoted in the Italian media as saying Rome favored ending the arms embargo.

Wen had pressed Europe to lift the ban at a summit with the European Union in Helsinki earlier this month but emerged only with a pledge to "carry forward work towards lifting the embargo."

Chinese officials have called the embargo "outdated" and "a product of the Cold War."

The United States strongly opposes lifting the ban, citing China's growing military expenditures and a controversial law enacted in 2005 giving Beijing the legal justification for any potential military aggression against Taiwan.

During talks with Wen on Monday, Prodi also said that the two sides had held "constructive discussions" on human rights.

"The Italian public pays a lot of attention to protection of freedom of information, the press and belief," he said, amid controversy over what observers say is a Chinese clampdown on the media ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 17th Communist Party Congress next year.

But trade remained at the forefront of the visit that has taken Prodi and an Italian delegation of around 700 businessmen to the booming cities of Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin over the last six days.

"Our goal is to promote mutual development in economy and investment," Prodi said.

"Italy is a Mediterranean country and so an ideal entry way for Chinese goods into Europe."

Prodi arrived here after witnessing the signing in Tianjin city, east of Beijing, Sunday of contracts worth almost 200 million dollars.

Italian giant Fiat purchased a Chinese automaker in Nanjing last week and will produce commercial vehicles there.

Prodi later met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and will depart Beijing for New York.

"China and Italy have no intense conflicts between us," Chinese state radio quoted Hu as telling his guest.

"There is no long-standing problem that can't be solved so there are wide prospects for the advancement of Sino-Italian ties," Hu was quoted as saying.

Just over 1,400 Italian companies are active in China, but 83 percent are from Italy's big industrial groups.

Rome currently has a 3.7-billion-euro (4.7-billion-dollar) trade deficit with China but Italian exports have increased recently, rising by 30 percent in June.

Prodi's delegation has focused on trying to get small and medium-sized Italian companies involved with the more than four million smaller enterprises in China which account for up to 60 percent of the huge Asian nation's economy.

"The proposal of a real partnership in this sector is strategic. In Italy there are still fears on this choice because some consider it a 'mortal hug,'" Prodi said in southern China's Guangzhou city on Friday.

"There are those who only see the risks of Chinese competition but who under-estimate the enormous opportunities that exist."