BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday sent a congratulatory letter to the first high-level conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development.

In his letter, Xi said transformation of the world unseen in a century is unfolding at a faster pace, the world economy is struggling to recover and the global development agenda is facing challenges.

"To build consensus on cooperation and promote common development, I have put forward the Global Development Initiative in order to help accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and I am pleased to see that with the joint participation of all parties, cooperation on the Global Development Initiative has yielded important early results and benefited many developing countries," Xi said.

He emphasized that development is the eternal theme of human society, and shared development is an important path to building a better world. As the largest developing country, China has always placed its own development within the larger context of human development and created new opportunities for the development of the world through its own development, Xi said.

China will further increase its resource input for global development cooperation, work with the international community to further advance the Global Development Initiative, and make new contributions to the realization of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, the Chinese president said.

The first high-level conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, hosted by the China International Development Cooperation Agency, kicked off in Beijing on Monday with the theme "Global Development Initiative: Echo the Development Agenda and Call for Global Action."