The Third Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is held in Beijing, today. -Xinhua

Ministers and representatives from China and 48 African countries held a ministerial meeting in Beijing today to make final preparations for a high-profile summit due to open tomorrow.

Participants discussed an action plan which lays out cooperative programs between China and Africa from 2007 to 2009 under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

The meeting will also submit a declaration to the FOCAC Beijing Summit, a landmark event in which leaders from 48 African countries that have diplomatic relations with China are to participate.

The declaration is expected to be passed at the summit themed on "friendship, peace, cooperation and development".

The two documents will give guiding principles for the development of China-Africa relations and their future cooperation,sources with China's Foreign Ministry said.

The participants agreed that next round of ministerial meeting of the FOCAC will be held in 2009 in Egypt.

"The FOCAC, which was set up in 2000, is a key strategic move by China and Africa to face up to the challenges in the new century, promote traditional friendship and enhance cooperation," Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi said at the opening ceremony of the meeting.

Wu said the FOCAC has launched a series of cooperative plans and become a key platform and effective mechanism for collective dialogue and pragmatic cooperation.

"The FOCAC and its development will provide useful experience for South-South cooperation," Wu said.

Wu put forward three proposals for future Sino-African cooperation, saying both China and African countries should make further effort to tap cooperation potentials.

In her first proposal, the Vice Premier said the two sides should always instill new vitality into the Forum, and draw up plan for future cooperation and carry out follow-up activities to turn the Forum into a pacesetter in promoting China-Africa all-round friendship.

She said in her second proposal that the two sides, with an eye on new developments, should fully tap cooperation potential and draw on each other's strengths to broaden and upgrade cooperation.

She also called on the two sides to enhance coordination to ensure their cooperation to move forward smoothly.

"The two sides should give full play to the role of the Forum as a mechanism of collective dialogue, keep close consultation, develop new consensus, closely study new trends in cooperation, expand common interests and appropriately address new problems arising in the course of cooperation, so as to turn the Forum into an effective platform for safeguarding the common interests of the two sides," she said.

The meeting was jointly presided over by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Development Sufian Ahmed.

Seyoum said the FOCAC has effectively pushed forward the China-Africa cooperation in trade, investment and human resources and helped deepen understandings and coordination in international affairs between China and Africa.

He also expressed, on behalf of the African countries, his appreciation of China for its active efforts in promoting Africa-China trade and pushing forward Africa's development.

He said the cooperation between Africa and China was based on mutual trust and African countries will continue to boost the development of the Forum for greater success.