BEIJING - China will continue to open itself up to and engage more with the world, its leaders decided at a key meeting that ended on Thursday.

In the five years from 2016, the country will develop an open economy at the higher level, and participate more in global governance and trade "so as to establish a far-ranging community of shared interests," according to a communique issued after the four-day Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

The committee encouraged coastal areas to engage in more global trade, and called for more high-tech manufacturing bases and cross-border economic cooperation zones.