Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan has called for stepping up international cooperation in promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy in a bid to achieve sustained economic development.

Zeng, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, gave the remarks in a letter congratulating the opening of the 13th International Nuclear Engineering Conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

"Developing clean energy and protecting the environment is an important task for the humankind to realize sustained economic development," Zeng said.

"There are wide prospects for the development of nuclear energy, " he said, "as it has been proven over the past decades that the nuclear energy is environment-friendly and consumes less resources. "

China aims to develop 40 million kilowatts of installed nuclear power generating capacity by the year 2020, and this is crucial for the improvement of its energy structure and ease the tension between its environment and resources.

Zeng called on Chinese nuclear experts to introduce advanced technology from overseas and enhance the self-designing, self- manufacturing and self-operating capabilities to ensure the quality and safety of nuclear power plants.

During the conference, Zeng met with representatives of Chinese and foreign nuclear energy organizations, and a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

China has opened nine nuclear power generators, according to Zhang Huazhu, director of China's Atomic Energy Agency. The country's nuclear power generating capacity currently stands at 8. 7 million kw.

The conference was co-sponsored by the China Nuclear Institute, the US Mechanical Engineers Institute, the Japanese Mechanical Engineers Institute and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Nearly 1,000 nuclear scientists, engineers and representatives from China and abroad attended the conference.

The first such conference was launched in 1991, and previous conferences were held in the United States, Japan and France.