President Xi Jinping announced that China will host the G20 summit for the first time in 2016.

"As the 2016 host of the G20 summit, China will continue the momentum of economic growth and make a greater contribution to the global economy," Xi said at the ninth G20 summit, held in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday.

China will be the second East Asian country to host the summit. The fifth G20 summit was in Seoul, South Korea, in 2010.

The G20 members take turns hosting the annual summit. At the 2011 summit in Cannes, France, it was announced that Russia would host the event in 2013, followed by Australia in 2014 and Turkey in 2015, leaving Australia the right to nominate an Asian country to be host in 2016.

Xi said during Sunday's summit that China is confident to fulfill its role as the chair of the 2016 G20 summit and a member of the management troika of the year 2015 and 2017.

The chair is part of a revolving management troika of past, present and future chairs. The incumbent chair establishes a temporary secretariat for the duration of its term, which coordinates the group's operations and organizes its meetings.

The role of the troika is to ensure continuity in the G20's work and management across host years.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, "After extensive consultation with the views of other member states, China won overwhelming support in 2016 to be the summit host country."

Many observers believe that China's leadership should match its economic power, and hosting the G20 summit in 2016 is an ideal occasion to see this occur.

Calling China a key factor to sustaining the effectiveness of the G20, Chen Yulu, president of Renmin University of China in Beijing, predicted even before this year's summit in Brisbane that China would host the 2016 summit.

"China had been the powerhouse of the global economy, with its contribution to the global GDP growth standing at 37.6 percent. Facts have shown clearly that a G20 mechanism with China's participation in the global economic governance is of great significance for the recovery of the global economy," Chen said.

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(China Daily 11/17/2014 page3)