The UN Summit on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) officially kicked off in New York on the morning of Sept. 20 (local time).

Vietnam’s State President Nguyen Minh Triet joined leaders from 193 UN member states and 19 international organisations at the event.

While opening the summit, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on world leaders to make greater efforts and actions, and pour more investment into infrastructure and social services to absolutely eradicate hunger and poverty across the globe by 2015 as they promised in the UN Millennium Declaration.

The UN chief said after 10 years of implementing the MDGs, the world has recorded achievements, especially in the endeavours to increase the number of children getting access to school, provide safe water to people and control epidemics. These progresses proved that the Millennium Development Goals “are achievable,” he said.

However, the world is still facing various challenges on the path to achieving the set targets by the deadline, including inequality. Therefore, the UN Secretary General urged developed nations to keep their promise to increase official development assistance for poor countries to fulfill the MDGs.

The UN summit will last until Sept. 22, with a plenary session and six roundtable discussions. The participating nations are expected to adopt a document to outline the direction for the implementation of MDGs from now until 2015.

President Triet is scheduled to deliver a key speech at the plenary session on the afternoon of Sept. 20 local time (Sept. 21 morning Hanoi time)./.