The attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) pledged by world leaders in 2000 will require all countries around the world to work together and to honor the commitments, a Chinese official said Wednesday Jakarta.

"Countries around the world shoulder major responsibility for development," said Liu Jian, head of China's State Council's Leading Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, adding developing countries should take the initiatives to step up reforms and adopt effective social and economic policies to enhance their capacity for development.

Liu said at the regional ministerial meeting on MDGs that the international community, the developed countries in particular, should honor their commitments in real earnest by providing more support to developing countries in areas such as market access, official development assistance, technology transfer and debt relief so as to create a favorable external environment and help developing countries achieve social and economic progress.

In dealing with poverty in the Asia-Pacific region, Liu recommended that countries in the region highlight the priorities and solve the pressing issues of poverty and trade.

Another crucial thing for the attainment of the MDGs is for countries in the region to give full play to competitive strength and deepen regional economic cooperation, he said.

"We shall enhance cooperation in trade and investment within the region, open up markets for each other, and promote trade and investment facilitation and liberalization, and strengthen regional economic integration," Liu told delegates from 40 countries.

According to Liu, the Chinese government has taken poverty alleviation as an important part of the national development strategy, which helps the country make major progress in poverty alleviation.

"From 1978 to 2004, poverty-stricken population was reduced from 250 million to 26.1 million and poverty incidence rate dropped from 30 percent to less than 3 percent," he said.

He said the Chinese government will press ahead with reform, accelerate institutional innovation and draw on the successful experience of all other countries to realize the MDGs comprehensively and at an early date.

Initiated during the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the MDGs include reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, eliminating gender disparity, reducing child mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three fourths, halting and reversing the incidence of major diseases, and reducing by a half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Source: Xinhua