China on Friday called on the Group of Twenty (G20) countries to cooperate more closely, urging them to convey a strong signal of growth and stability to the international community.

"It (the G20) has become an important platform for global economic governance," said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai at a press briefing prior to President Hu Jintao's attendance at the sixth G20 summit since the group first came together in 2008.

The summit is scheduled for November 3-4 in the southern French city of Cannes at a time when the deepening European debt crisis threatens to tip the global economy back into recession.

China hopes that G20 members will get more united, make joint efforts in a democratic and coordinated way, and pursue macro-economic policies that support each other in stabilizing the financial market and restoring market confidence, said the Chinese official.

Cui also suggested that the summit should focus on critical economic and financial issues to appropriately address problems such as the sovereign debt crisis in some developed countries and the growing pressure of inflation across the world.

G20 members have underlined a "robust, sustainable and balanced growth" of the world economy. Cui said that currently, priority should be given to "robust growth" compared with "sustainable and balanced growth" for the world economy in order to consolidate the hard-won economic recovery.

Cui urged all G20 members to prevent protectionism and take care of the needs of the least developed economies.

"(The G20) should continue attaching importance to the problem of unbalanced development between the South and the North," Cui said, urging the group to recognize in an objective way the contribution of emerging economies and developing countries to the world recovery and create favorable environments for their growth.

"The opinions of emerging markets and developing countries should be taken seriously no matter when we talk on the reform of the international currency system, the global economic governance, or the price of commodities," he said. "These countries' presence and say should be increased."