Chinese President Hu Jintao urged to oppose trade protectionism on Thursday at the G20 summit in London.

Recently, trade protectionism as well as other forms of protectionism have notably increased, Hu said in a speech.

This goes against the consensus that has been reached at the Washington Summit on rejecting protectionism and refraining from turning inward in our policies, he said.

"Protectionism was prevalent during the Great Depression in the1920s and 1930s, but it only led to grave consequences. Lessons of history must be learnt," Hu said, adding no country should resort to protectionism under the excuse of stimulating the economy.

"We should jointly oppose those discriminatory practices against foreign workers under the excuse of protecting domestic jobs," the president said.

"We should work together to oppose trade protectionism in all manifestations and reject attempts to raise the market access threshold under various excuses and all forms of investment protectionism that harm the interests of other countries," he said.

"And we should fight against the abuse of trade remedy measures together," he added.

Hu expressed his hope that countries concerned will ease their unfair restrictions on the exports of developing countries and increase trade with them.

The Doha Round negotiations are crucial to global trade liberalization, he said.

"We should jointly uphold the consensus of July 2008, build on the existing framework and continue to move the negotiations forward with a view to bringing about comprehensive and balanced outcomes at an early date," he added.

The G20 Summit concluded on Thursday with consensus on how to save the world out of the financial crisis, including a pledge of US$1.1 trillion to revive the world economy, a joint call to fight protectionism, and concrete actions to tighten banking regulations.

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2009)