BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping on Tuesday said that China will continue to work with other parties in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

While delivering a keynote speech via video at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2021, Xi said that China will expand health cooperation with various parties in infectious disease control, public health, traditional medicine and other areas to jointly protect the lives and health of people in all countries.

China will build a closer partnership for connectivity, and work with all sides to promote "hard connectivity" of infrastructure and "soft connectivity" of rules and standards, Xi said.

He said the country will build a closer partnership for green development and called for strengthening cooperation on green infrastructure, green energy and green finance.

He also called for improving the BRI International Green Development Coalition, the Green Investment Principles for the Belt and Road Development and other multilateral cooperation platforms "to make green a defining feature of Belt and Road cooperation."

Xi stressed that China will work with all willing participants to build the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) into a pathway to poverty alleviation and growth.

By 2030, Belt and Road projects could help lift 7.6 million people from extreme poverty and 32 million people from moderate poverty across the world, Xi said, citing a World Bank report.

"We will act in the spirit of openness and inclusiveness as we work with all willing participants to build the BRI into a pathway to poverty alleviation and growth, which will contribute positively to the common prosperity of humankind," he said.