Chinese president calls for closer cooperation, joint efforts to tackle financial crisis

YEKATERINBURG, Russia, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao called for closer cooperation among BRIC countries and presented a proposal for dealing with the ongoing global financial crisis when he addressed the first BRIC summit here Tuesday.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (2nd R) poses for a group photo  together with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva  (1st L), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (2nd L), and Indian  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the first formal meeting  of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) leaders in  Yekaterinburg, Russia, on June 16, 2009. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

"We should seize the historic opportunity, strengthen unity and cooperation, and jointly safeguard the overall interests of developing countries, " Hu said, offering the following proposal for furthering cooperation among the BRIC countries, which groups Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Firstly, to strengthen political mutual trust. He said the four are emerging countries with an impact on global affairs, and are the important forces to keep regional and international peace and stability.

"We should make full use of current mechanisms and deepen political mutual trust through dialogue and communication, and serve as an example of mutual respect and equal coordination in the international community," Hu said.

Secondly, to deepen economic cooperation. He noted that the four countries have advantages in resources, markets, labor force and technology, and are highly complementary to each other.

Hu called on the four countries to intensify economic cooperation, enrich its contents, broaden it to wider fields, create new mode for cooperation to achieve better results.

Besides economic and trade cooperation, the four countries can also form partnership in science and technology when dealing with climate change, carry out joint research in high-tech fields such as new energy, and jointly create new economic growth engines, said Hu.

Thirdly, to promote cultural cooperation. All the four countries have a centuries-old history and civilization and rich cultural heritages. There is a long standing friendship among the four peoples, said Hu.