BEIJING, Oct 8: Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend next week’s G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Beijing and make a keynote speech, the foreign ministry said on Saturday.

China’s President Hu Jintao will attend the opening ceremony and make an important speech at the meeting in Beijing, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 of the world’s wealthiest nations as well as larger developing countries will convene on October 15-16 in Xianghe town, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of the Chinese capital.

Created in 1999, the G20 groups countries including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The key theme of this year’s meeting will be Strengthening Global Cooperation: Promoting Balanced and Orderly World Economic Development, the ministry said.

The meeting comes with world oil prices hovering around $65 a barrel, threatening to disrupt global economic growth. Western nations are also pressing for more appreciation of Asian currencies, chief amongst them China’s, to bring more balance to trade.

China, which has the fastest growing major economy in the world, is the current chair of the G20.

The G20 forum gathers the finance ministers and central bank governors for discussions aimed at improving the international financial and monetary system.

To date it has made scant headway but does serve as an informal arena to foster dialogue between major industrial and emerging market countries.—AFP