Dear colleagues,

To enhance prevention and control of communicable diseases is a pressing task facing the international community. In recent years, frequent outbreaks of emerging communicable diseases, such as SARS and avian flu, together with the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, have posed a threat to people's health and lives, undermined economic and social development of countries concerned and even jeopardized regional and global security and stability.

The international community should establish and improve multilateral cooperation mechanisms for preventing and controlling communicable diseases. An overall plan should be promptly drawn up to fight avian flu and other communicable diseases. Scientific and standard prevention and control measures should be taken. The United Nations, the World Health Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and organizations for regional cooperation should play their important role in this regard. We should deepen technological exchange and cooperation and encourage countries to provide each other with technical support and assistance in a bid to achieve early breakthroughs in the basic research of communicable diseases. A platform should be put in place to eventually realize information-sharing on prevention and control of communicable diseases in a timely and standardized manner. Global capacity to fight communicable diseases should be strengthened and more technological and financial support should be given to those poor countries plagued by communicable diseases. High priority should be given to cooperation in epidemiological prevention and control, epidemic monitoring and diagnosis, R&D of vaccines and drug development of avian flu so that all countries can benefit from scientific and technological achievements and experience in epidemic control. Anti-retroviral drugs should be made easily available through price reduction or patent transfer so that more HIV/AIDS patients will be treated. Research, development and supply of inexpensive yet effective new anti-malaria drugs should be encouraged and supported to treat malaria patients, particularly those in Africa. Countries should cooperate in disease monitoring and reporting, providing health services and prevention and control of common communicable diseases and share their best practices in these areas to promote the well-being of people around the world.

Dear colleagues,

Education is the foundation for economic and social development. It provides an important means for promoting social justice and enhancing mutual understanding among different civilizations. For developing countries, speeding up the development of education and improving the educational level of the workforce will boost employment and economic growth and help narrow their gap in knowledge, human resources and skills. It is of great significance to strengthen cooperation between developed and developing countries in education. We should give priority to the following efforts: improving the education system, raising education quality, promoting continuing education, fostering a culture of learning, strengthening international exchange, sharing educational resources, applying information and communication technologies, expanding access to education, increasing government input and strengthening capacity-building. We should encourage UN agencies, other international organizations and bilateral aid programs to make òeducation for alló and òcontinuing educationó priority goals, help developing countries improve capacity building in human resources development and ensure their equal participation in international cooperation and rule-making in education.

To promote international cooperation in education, an exchange mechanism can be set up between the G8 and developing countries for us to benefit from each other's experience. China would be happy to host a symposium of presidents of research-oriented universities on international exchange and cooperation in education.