BEIJING - China will as always guarantee the legitimate rights of foreign news organizations and their reporters and provide convenience for their reporting work in the country, a senior official said here Wednesday.

Liu Yunshan, head of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made the remarks as he met with members of the Presidium of the World Media Summit (WMS) in the Great Hall of the People.p   The heads and representatives of 11 world-renowned news organizations attended the WMS Presidium Meeting held in Beijing Tuesday.

Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, congratulated the global media leaders for the success of the WMS Presidium meeting.

He said the success of the 2009 World Media Summit, which was attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao, made a profound impact on the global media sector.

Liu said since the first summit convened in Beijing in 2009, the mechanism established by the World Media Summit has become a platform for exchanges and cooperation among leading media entities around the world.

He said over the past two years, a series of bilateral and multilateral activities have been staged on the WMS platform, which is of great importance to all participants.

Liu said the topics discussed at the WMS Presidium meeting are of practical significance for the media sector around the world.

He expressed his hope that the WMS mechanism will continue to develop and improve so as to deepen exchanges between global media organizations.

Liu reaffirmed the importance attached to the growth of the media sector by the Chinese government.

He said the government earnestly supports Chinese media organizations having in-depth, multi-dimensional cooperation with foreign media entities in areas of news products, human resources, information technology and operation.

He invited foreign reporters to pay more visits to China and see more parts of the country.

He also expressed the wish that foreign media would issue increasingly precise, balanced and objective reports about China.

Among the media leaders attending the WMS Presidium Meeting are Thomas Curley of AP, Mark Thompson of BBC, Arthur Sulzburger Jr. of New York Times, Vitaly Nikitich Ignatenko of ITAR-TASS, Satoshi Ishikawa of Kyodo News, David Schlesinger of Thomson Reuters, Ahmed Shaikh of Al-Jazeera Network, John Liu of Google and Ringo Chan of Turner Broadcasting System.

Xinhua President Li Congjun also attended the meeting.