​The Philippines, like China, should depend on modernization to achieve economic development and social progress, among other arduous tasks it faces as a country, Chinese envoy to the Philippines said Tuesday.

With the Philippines and China both developing countries in Asia, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian said the two countries must take advantage of the current global development, which started to shift in the region.

The shift, according to Huang, was due to the joint efforts of the Asian countries to make the region "a highland of development and a hot spot for cooperation."

He made the pronouncement during the Pandesal Forum following the conclusion of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

"As many insightful people in the Philippines have realized, we are currently living in the 'Asian Century,' and the focus of global economic development has shifted to Asia," he said, adding it only proved that the Philippine future "is deeply rooted in its own national construction and development, in the surrounding environment of good neighborliness and friendship, and in the Asian family of peace, stability, and common prosperity."

Currently, Huang believed, the Philippines already entered a new stage of development while it also started facing new strategic choices.

"Experience tells us that development is of overriding importance and the key to solving all problems," he said.

Taking pride in what the Chinese government called "Chinese modernization," the foreign diplomat extended his country's willingness to help the Philippines achieve its own goals in terms of development.

Chinese modernization, for China, "is the modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of material and cultural-ethical advancement, of harmony between humanity and nature, and of peaceful development."

Huang believed that "the express train of Chinese modernization will surely bring" more opportunities to deeply broaden the mutual cooperation between China and the Philippines as well as to "provide new powerful momentum for the overall development of China and the Philippines."

"We have reason to believe that Chinese modernization will create new opportunities for the new “Golden Era” of China-Philippines relations," he added.