BEIJING - Premier Wen Jiabao Thursday met in Beijing with South African President Jacob Zuma, pledging to advance China-South Africa ties and further deepen China-Africa cooperation.

Wen said the international financial crisis has brought new challenges for China and Africa, but also "has enhanced our resolution and strength to make united efforts."

China will closely coordinate with African countries and implement the new measures announced Thursday by President Hu Jintao at the opening ceremony of the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on the China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), so as to benefit the peoples of China and Africa and promote world peace and stability, said Wen.

On China-Africa cooperation, Wen called for new methods and new thinking in order to improve quality and efficiency.

He called for following a government-guided, business-led and market-driven approach for win-win progress, and further improving Africa's production and living conditions, scaling up personnel training and technology transfer and helping African countries improve their self-development capacity in conducting Sino-African cooperation.

Great importance should be attached to the improvement of people's well-being, increasing employment, protection of Africa's eco-environment and respecting local cultures and customs, the premier said.

Both sides need to further open their markets to each other, optimize trade and investment structure and adopt feasible mid- and long-term plans, so as to ensure cooperation sustainable, he said.

On the relations between China and South Africa, Wen said South Africa is the largest economy in Africa and China's largest trade partner in the continent.

The two countries have enjoyed great potential on trade and economic cooperation, said Wen.

China is willing to work with South Africa on balancing bilateral trade, enhancing infrastructure construction and manufacturing industry and high-tech cooperation, so as to inject new vitality into the development of China-South Africa relations, he said.

Zuma said his current visit and participation in the FOCAC meeting have yielded important results and had far-reaching significance.

He agreed with Premier Wen's proposals on advancing economic and trade cooperation between Africa and China, adding that his country is ready to coordinate with China to fully implement the consensus and promote the bilateral ties and Africa-China cooperation to a new level.