On November 3, 2011, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other BRICS leaders including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma met in Cannes, France, ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) summit. They exchanged views on BRICS cooperation and the Cannes Group of 20 (G20) summit.

Hu said that the world's current economic situation is severe and complicated while the prominent sovereign debt issues in some developed countries have created turbulence in the financial markets. Many developing countries also face inflationary pressure and world economic growth has slowed to some extent, Hu said. Under the current circumstances, Hu said, the G-20 countries should work together better to ride out the hard times and boost robust, sustainable and balanced growth of the world economy. Maintaining a robust growth should be a top priority at the current stage. Both developed and developing countries should keep a balanced and relatively rapid economic growth, Hu said. Only in this way, he said, could the world economy achieve recovering growth.

The Chinese president stressed that Europe is the largest economy in the world and the global economy can realize recovery only if Europe achieves that. China hopes Europe can achieve economic recovery and development as soon as possible, he said. Hu also said that the solution of Europe's debt issues mainly relies on Europe itself. He said that China believes that Europe absolutely has the wisdom and ability to solve the issues while the international community should render support and assistance. The international community should unify thinking and take actions. The Chinese president suggested that the finance departments of the BRICS countries create a consultation mechanism to closely watch the development of the situation, exchange views on relevant issues and strengthen coordination.

At the meeting, the leaders of BRICS also discussed stronger cooperation among BRICS countries and exchanged views on the world economic situation and the debt issues in Europe. The leaders agreed to maintain close communications and coordination and work together to make the G-20 summit generate positive results.

Wang Qishan, Dai Bingguo and other officials attended the meeting.