国内英语新闻:Top Chinese legislator urges immediate action to achieve MDGs

GENEVA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Wu Bangguo, China's top legislator, on Monday called for the international community to demonstrate confidence, strengthen cooperation and safeguard peace to speed up the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"The parliament should supervise and support its own government to implement the MDGs, to take peaceful and friendly foreign policy, and to properly handle sensitive issues in bilateral ties and international relations," Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said at the opening ceremony of the third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament.

The MDGs, endorsed by UN members in 2000, set out eight targets ranging from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

Wu Bangguo (4th R, Front), chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), poses for a group photo with other participants of the third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament held in Geneva, Switzerland, July 19, 2010.

"Over the past decade, the world has been achieving results on the MDGs, but the progress remains slow," Wu said. "Developing countries, especially the most underdeveloped countries, are in escalated economic difficulties and the gaps between the north and the south widen."

Wu said that implementation of the MDGs becomes more crucial under the impact of the global financial crisis in particular.

He said confidence is the premise of realizing the MDGs. The global financial crisis has an impact that can not be neglected on the implementation of the MDGs, but the world should aware that the MDGs and dealing with the crisis are not contradictory, Wu said.

He stressed it will be more significant for the international community to speed up the MDGs' implementation process while there still exists in-depth impact of the financial crisis and uncertainty of the world economy's systematic and structural risks.