On June 15, 2005, Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan made a speech at the Second Summit of the Group of 77 (G77) plus China. Zeng Peiyan said China is ready to work with other developing countries to strengthen cooperation and achieve common development.

First, Zeng Peiyan congratulated the opening of the Second Summit of the Group of 77 (G77) plus China and thanked the other developing countries for their firm support to the Chinese government for a long time. He said peace, development and cooperation have become the trend of the times. The developing countries have become an indispensable force on the international stage with strengthened cooperation in politics and economy especially since the opening of the First Summit of the Group of 77 five years ago. This year is the Year of Cooperation and Development, as the biggest developing country, China is willing to conduct pragmatic, effective and mutually-beneficial cooperation with all the countries in order to realize the Millennium Development Goals.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Zeng Peiyan made a four-point proposal.

First, the developing countries should strengthen South-South solidarity. On the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and other generally recognized principles governing international relations, the developing nations should respect and support each other and conduct positive consultation and coordination. They should seek common grounds and tackle disputes, and take collective action on major international issues and the ones concerning the overall interests of the developing countries, so as to boost their right to participation, voice and influences in the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other international organizations.

Second, the developing countries should deepen South-South economic and technological cooperation. They should continue to strengthen economic and trade cooperation, open markets to each other, facilitate and liberalize trade and investment, and speed up the regional economic integration. They should continue to expand the areas for cooperation, coordinate the development of cross-border infrastructure, and actively promote the cooperation in science and technology, information, energy, environment, education and health. The developing counties should also enrich the content of cooperation, strengthen dialogue on macro-economy policy, exchange and share development experiences and explore the mechanism to deal with various risks in a collective manner.

Third, the developing countries should increase the ability of their own development, which is the way for the developing world to boost economic development, promote social advancement, and the important basis for the developing countries to solidify political independence and maintain social stability. The developing countries should proceed from the actual national conditions and learn experiences from other countries to improve the ability and level of their own development.

Fourth, the developing countries should strengthen South-North ties through dialogue and cooperation. They should push the developed countries to pay closer attention to their demands through dialogue and take more actions to implement the relevant commitments in the increase of investment and aid, the decrease of trade barrier, the accelerated transfer of technology, and the reduction of debts. They shall enhance South-North economic ties; realize mutual-complementarity and mutual-benefit in order to boost healthy economic development of the world at large.

Zeng Peiyan briefed the participants on China's economic development achievements and ideas on future development. He said that in the first 20 years of this century, China would strive to realize the great goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all round way while adhering to put people first and promote the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development according to the scientific concept of development. He pointed out that China enjoys a big market, rich labor resources and relatively strong internal force for economic development.

Zeng Peiyan stressed that China will stick to the road of peaceful development, continue to expand the economic and technological exchanges with other developing countries so as to promote China's continuous development and provide new opportunities to developing countries on an equal , mutually-beneficial and mutually-complementary basis. He reiterated that China has always been an active advocator, firm supporter and participant of South-South cooperation. China has launched more than 2,000 joint projects on South-South cooperation, implemented zero tariffs on many imports from the least developed countries, and signed lots of debt-cancellation protocols with 41 countries. China will as always support South-South cooperation and develop friendly relations with other developing countries in a sincere attitude no matter how the international situation changes.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Zeng Peiyan extended welcome to the state leaders and entrepreneurs to attend the First Forum for South-South Cooperation and Trade in Beijing later this year, adding that China will make a donation to the South Development Fund.