Beijing, Mar 25 (IANS): Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday sent a congratulatory letter to the opening ceremony of the 2017 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in Hainan province.

Since its establishment 16 years ago, the Boao Forum for Asia has played an important role in building Asian consensus, promoting Asian cooperation and upgrading Asian influence, Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying.

The theme for this year's conference is "Globalisation and Free Trade: The Asian Perspectives".

Xi said the theme reflected the attention on economic globalisation paid by the international community, especially the Asian countries.

The President called upon attendees of the conference to pool their wisdom on solving the major problems faced by the world and regional economy, and jointly push forward a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalisation process.

Talking about economic globalisation at the opening ceremony, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli asked the Asian countries to join hands in promoting economic globalisation and free trade, and forging the community of common destiny for Asia and the mankind.

To achieve that goal, the Asian countries should promote a development mode featuring peace, innovation, openness, sharing and fairness, said Zhang.