Chinese Ambassador to Britain, Za Peixin, was elected president of the 24th session of the biennial Assembly of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which opened its biennial meeting in London on Monday.

Assuming its presidency, the first ever by a Chinese after the country resumed its membership in 1973, Za said that he would, with the joint efforts of all member countries, try his best to maintain IMO on its track for safer and cleaner maritime transportation.

Za said that members of IMO, a UN organization which has taken a safer, more secure and environment-friendly world as its own ideal, are glad to see sailors who are destined to bet the waves on the sea are enjoying increasingly safer working conditions, and the whole world are enjoying economic globalization brought up by cleaner and more efficient maritime transportation system.

However, the new IMO president said, people must never lie satisfied with all the achievements made, and should instead make timely readjustment of its navigation for a better future.

What's crucial important for the organization, Za said, is to completely and effectively carry out all the measures already mapped out through the hard work by the organization which have been headed by the out-going IMO Assembly President Mel Cppe and the secretariat.

Among the key issues, the session is believed to discuss the increasing number and audacity of pirate attacks on shipping off the coast of Somalia and other regions characterized by political instability.

IMO, with 166 full members now, was set up in 1959.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2005)