Chinese vice-premier meets with WB president

BEIJING - Vice-Premier Li Keqiang met with Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, on Wednesday to exchange views on deepening cooperation between China and the World Bank.

Li said China has maintained fruitful cooperation in various areas with the World Bank over the years, pointing to the construction of infrastructure facilities and poverty alleviation as examples.

Bilateral knowledge cooperation, in particular, has made further progress over recent years, which is useful for China to learn from international experience during development, Li said.

Li pointed out that China has become a middle-income country despite its uneven development, stressing that this is particularly true of the yawning rural-urban gap.

As the wide rural-urban gap means potential, China has great potential for development in the area of urbanization in the coming decades, Li added.

"To promote urbanization, we should undergo the course of the simultaneous development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization," Li said.

"China's food security should also be ensured. Meanwhile, we have to attach more importance to green development and strengthen energy conservation," he said.

China's reform should be deepened, its social development strengthened and basic public services promoted. These tasks all require an international outlook and experience, according to Li.

China is willing to launch joint research with the World Bank on urbanization while attracting universities and research institutions to participate in the research in order to build the research work into a flagship project.

If China can do well along the path of urbanization, it will benefit the Chinese people as well as the world, Li said.

Kim agreed with Li's proposal and said the course of China's urbanization will provide a huge market and precious experience to the world.

The World Bank is willing to cooperate with China on urbanization, which has great significance for the World Bank to enrich development ideas and make progress in poverty relief, Kim said.