Chinese President Hu Jintao and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reached broad consensus on tackling the international financial crisis, promoting the reform of the world financial system and enhancing bilateral relations when they met on Wednesday.

The two leaders were meeting ahead of a Group of 20 summit on the financial crisis, a follow-up to last November's meeting in Washington. The summit is scheduled for Thursday.

This was the second meeting between the two leaders in less than five months. Hu and Brown met at the G20 Washington summit and discussed bilateral relations and ways of tackling the financial crisis.

Hu said the upcoming London G20 summit, which brings together world leaders to discuss measures to tackle the financial crisis, is of great importance for boosting confidence of the people and businesses, stabilizing the world financial market and reviving global economic growth.

With the international financial market still in turbulence, the world financial crisis continues to spread and go deeper and is taking a heavier toll of the world's real economy, Hu noted.

It is a daunting challenge for the international community to cope with the crisis and strive for a recovery of the world economy, the Chinese president said.

"All countries across the world are on a same boat of world economy, and all on board must work together to fight against the current difficulties," he said. "Only through joint efforts can the boat sail through the financial turmoil safe and sound, and the negative effect of the financial crisis be reduced to the minimum and an early recovery of world economy is made possible."

During the meeting, Hu made a four-point proposal to address the complicated international economic situation. First, to stabilize the world financial market as soon as possible; second, to adopt economic stimulus plans in line with a country's specific conditions; third, to curb trade and investment protectionism; and fourth, to reform the world financial regime in an all-round, balanced, gradual and effective manner.

China appreciates and supports the positive measures Britain has taken to combat the financial crisis, and will continue to assume a responsible attitude to work with Britain and other G20 members so that the London summit will yield positive results, said the Chinese president.

Hu said the financial crisis fully reflected the deficiency of the current economic and financial system, particularly its failure to manage risks and solve problems accumulated in the process of economic globalization.

"It has become the consensus of the international community to reform the world's economic and financial governance structure so as to provide a sound system that can guarantee a long-term and stable world economic development," Hu said.