Chinese President Hu Jintao addresses the Uzbek Parliament in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 16, 2004, putting forward a proposal for further developing relations with Central Asia.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said Wednesday in Tashkent that China has made great achievements in its economic construction and social development in the past 25 years since it began to carry out reform and opening-up policies.

In a speech at the Uzbek parliament, Hu noted that China's gross domestic product (GDP) has been growing at an annual rate of 9.4 percent and its social productivity and comprehensive national strength have kept rising and people's living standard has witnessed continuous improvement.

In 2003, he said, China's GDP exceeded 1.4 trillion US dollars, or 1,000 dollars per capita. At present, China's economy maintains a sound development momentum, with its GDP jumping by 9.8 percent, revenue 33.4 percent and foreign trade 38.2 percent in the first quarter of this year.

However, he said, the country is not overlooking the fact that it still has a long way to go before realizing modernization, as it has a population of 1.3 billion and the development is not balanced between its regions.

"Hence we have fixed our development objective for the first two decades of this century and we will concentrate on the construction of a moderately well-off society and strive to quadruple the GDP of 2000 in 2020 to 4 trillion dollars," said the Chinese president, who is on a state visit here.

Hu added that the Chinese people are striving to reach this goal, sticking to the principle of focusing on economic construction, never wavering in carrying out the policies of reform and opening up and implementing a people-centered, all-around, coordinated and sustainable development mode.

Extensively developing the western region is an important policy adopted by the Chinese government to achieve regionally coordinated development, President Hu pointed out.

He expressed welcome to enterprises of the Central Asian countries to participate in the efforts and seek a new motive force for development and new business opportunities along with their Chinese cooperators.

China's development needs a long-term peaceful and stable international and regional environment, Hu said, adding that China will unswervingly stick to its independent foreign policy of peace and the road of peaceful development.

President Hu pledged that China will never seek hegemony and expansion as its foreign policy is aimed at maintaining world peace and promoting common development.

He declared that China will continue to uphold its basic policy of opening to the outside world. "The Chinese government is willing to strengthen economic and technological cooperation with neighboring countries and regions including the states in Central Asia on the basis of equality and mutual benefit."

China's development will not only benefit the Chinese people but also represent a positive factor for accelerating the development of Central Asia, Hu said.

Hu arrived here Monday night for a two-day state visit. During his stay in Tashkent, the Chinese president will attend a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization scheduled for Thursday.

Uzbekistan is the last leg of Hu's four-nation trip, which had taken him to Poland, Romania and Hungary.