The 6th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit opened here on Sunday in Helsinki, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presented China's views on boosting Asia-Europe cooperation in various fields.

Wen and leaders from ten ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, South Korea, Japan, 25 European Union (EU) member states and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso attended the opening session of the summit.

At around 2:00 pm local time (or 1400 GMT), Finland's President Tarja Halonen, whose country holds the EU presidency, announced the start of the summit, and soon Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen delivered welcoming remarks.

At a plenary session afterwards, the leaders debated on the issue of how to respond to global challenges, an theme designated by the host, vowing to making full use of the ASEM mechanism to enhance cooperation between Europe and Asia.

Wen delivered at the meeting a speech entitled Deepen Asia-Europe Cooperation to Jointly Meet Challenges, in which he presented an eight-point proposal :

    -- Enhancing political dialogue and better responding to security threats;

    -- Deepening cultural exchanges to promote harmonious co-existence;

    -- Intensifying financial cooperation to promote balanced economic development;

    -- Expanding dialogue and cooperation to ensure energy security;

    -- Supporting the multilateral trading system to achieve common development;

    -- Encouraging business participation and expanding channels of cooperation;

    -- Addressing non-traditional security issues and effectively preventing and controlling avian influenza;

    -- Narrowing the urban-rural gap to realize balanced economic development.

Editor: Donald