Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi on Monday urged the international community to join efforts to promote gender equality.
  
Wu said the international community is attaching greater importance to the development of women, which has become an important criterion to measure a country or a region's political, economic and social development.
  
Despite the apparent progress, the task of achieving gender equality in reality is still arduous and the road ahead is long, Wu said while delivering a speech at a reception for delegates attending the meeting marking the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.
  
She urged the international community to join hands and "hold high the banner of equality, development and peace" to boost the development and progress of women cause.
  
The reception was presided by Gu Xiulian, vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress and president of the All-China Women's Federation. 
  
The meeting to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women opened here Monday, with more than 800 delegates around the world.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2005)