Asia has become a major growth engine for the world economy but needs to transform its development model, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday.

He made the remarks when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2013 held in Boao, a coastal town in South China's Hainan province.

Asia has emerged as an important engine driving world economic recovery and growth, contributing to over 50 percent of global growth in recent years and instilling much needed confidence in the world, Xi said.

What's more Asia's cooperation with other regions of the world at regional and sub-regional levels has great vitality and promising prospects, he said.

However, Asia needs to transform and upgrade its development model in keeping with the trend of the times, the president urged.

"It is important that we should shift the growth model, adjust the economic structure, make development more cost effective and make life better for our people," he said.

Sustaining development is still of paramount importance to Asia, because only development holds the key to solving major problems and difficulties it faces, Xi said.