BEIJING -- A Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday said China hopes the United States will take effective measures to enable its economy and financial situation to improve and turn better.

Hong Lei made the remarks when commenting on a new bond-purchasing program in the US known as QE3, the country's third round of quantitative easing since the onset of the global financial crisis.

Hong expressed the hope that the US will improve its economy and play an active role in safeguarding the stability of the international financial market and promoting the stable and healthy development of the world economy.

The new bond-buying plan was announced Thursday by the US Federal Reserve in a bid to bolster the country's weak economic recovery.

After a two-day policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, a Fed panel that sets interest rates, the US central bank pledged to buy agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month.