BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to Austria and trip to France's Cannes for the sixth summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) have promoted friendship, cooperation and efforts to seek a win-win outcome, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Friday when the summit was closing.

During his six-day trip which ended Friday, Hu attended more than 40 functions and activities. Yang, who accompanied Hu during the journey, described the trip as "rich in content, diverse in form, fruitful in outcome."

Advancing cooperation

During the bustling two-day Cannes summit, Hu was busy with many diplomatic activities, among others, the delivery of a speech entitled "Promote Growth Through Win-Win Cooperation" which elaborated China's proposals for addressing the world's current financial crisis.

In the proposals, Hu said that growth must be ensured while paying attention to balance, with strong growth as the primary goal in pursuing strong, sustainable and balanced growth.

Hu also called for pursuing win-win outcomes through cooperation, improving governance in the course of reform, striving for progress through innovation, and promoting common prosperity through development.

The proposals sent a clear signal of ensuring growth, enhancing stability, jointly facing the current situation, and seeking win-win cooperation, and the proposals were highly praised by the leaders participating in the summit, Yang said.

On various occasions, the Chinese president touched on issues like the state of the global economy and trade and introduced China's macroeconomic performance this year and the related policies and measures, Yang said.

Hu's remarks on China's contribution to world economic growth received positive comments from the participants, and China's firm stance against trade protectionism as declared by Hu was seconded by many countries, Yang said.

At the summit, Hu announced that, to further help the least developed countries, China will, in the context of South-South cooperation, give zero-tariff treatment to 97 percent of the tariff items of exports to China from the least developed countries having diplomatic ties with China.

This is a substantial move made by China to facilitate development and push ahead the Doha Development Agenda, which has been praised by the international community and developing countries, Yang said.

During the summit, Hu also exchanged in-depth views on the European sovereign debt issue with leaders of other countries, stressing the global economy can recover only if Europe joins China in thinking it completely has the ability to solve its debt issues.

China has been supporting Europe's efforts to offset the impact of the global financial crisis and realize an economic recovery, Yang said, adding China's candid and reasonable stance received an enthusiastic response from the affected countries.

Seeking a win-win outcome

Besides calling for enhancing win-win cooperation in his speech, upon his arrival in Cannes, Hu immediately attended various sideline bilateral meetings, exchanging frank views on bilateral relations, the world economic situation as well as regional and international issues of common concern with leaders of countries and international organizations, in an effort to seek a win-win outcome and make the summit a success.

During his meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Hu exchanged views with the French leader on advancing China-France ties and obtaining positive results from the Cannes summit.

During his separate meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Hu discussed deepening cooperation among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) while agreeing to further enhance China-Russia and China-Brazil ties.

In Cannes, Hu also met respectively with U.S. President Barack Obama and leaders of Germany, Japan, South Africa, Britain and other countries as well as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy.

In addition, ahead of the G20 summit, Hu attended the meeting of BRICS leaders and discussed such issues as strengthening cooperation within BRICS and exchanged views on the world's current economic situation and the European debt issue.

Yang said that generally, the Cannes summit had a positive and balanced outcome thanks to the joint efforts made by China and other parties involved.

Enhancing friendship

Regarding Hu's state visit to Austria, Yang said this visit was highly significant as this year marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Austria. During his stay in Austria, the Chinese president held talks with his Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer. He also met with Austrian Prime Minister Werner Faymann and President of the National Council of Austria Barbara Prammer.

Seven bilateral cooperation agreements in the fields of finance, culture, environmental protection and renewable energy were also signed during Hu's visit, Yang said.

Yang said that the leaders of the two countries have reached important consensus in pushing ahead pragmatic cooperation and have agreed on the direction for the future development of bilateral relations. Here, the Chinese president pointed out four goals, namely strengthening their political relationship of equality and mutual trust, expanding mutually beneficial and win-win relations in economy and trade, promoting humanitarian exchanges and cooperation, and deepening multilateral cooperation for peace and development.

The Austrian leaders fully agreed with Hu, and said Austria is willing to keep in close touch with China to jointly expand economic and trade cooperation, strengthen cooperation in the fields of culture, science and technology and tourism, as well as maintain and even expand the communication and coordination in multilateral issues in order to push the partnership of friendly cooperation between the two countries to a new level, Yang said.

Yang said the Chinese president's visit to Austria has opened a new chapter in China-Austria relations, helped the relations develop in a more comprehensive and balanced way, and reached the goal of consolidating friendship between the two countries by promoting cooperation and planning for the future.

Finally, Yang said Hu's visit to Europe, which the foreign minister described as a journey of enhancing friendship, promoting cooperation and seeking win-win results, was a full success.