BEIJING, March 1 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday called for generating more efforts and resources to help Africa and the world's most underdeveloped nations reduce poverty and reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"Despite the progresses made by the international community in recent years, meeting the MDGs at the global level in 2015 still remains an arduous task," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular press conference.

"We hope the international community could further carry out the consensus reached by the United Nations and global leaders in the 2010 MDGs high-level meeting," Hong added.

Hong said that China attaches great importance to the implementation of the MDGs and has already met the target of reducing its population living in poverty by half.

However, the spokesman stressed that China still faces many challenges as it remains a developing country, adding that China has offered everything in its capacity to help other developing countries achieve the MDGs under the framework of South-South cooperation.

The World Bank issued a report on Wednesday saying that China has achieved remarkable progress and made significant contributions to global poverty reduction. From 1981 to 2008, China has brought 660 million people out of poverty.

Developing countries have already met the goal of halving extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries by 2015, largely thanks to China's economic development, the report added.

The MDGs are a set of eight development goals that the international community has agreed to meet by the year 2015.