UNITED NATIONS, June 29 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday called on the international community to pay more attention and provide more assistance to Central Africa as the region is facing a lot of challenges.

"The central African region is still faced with many challenges in realizing lasting peace and sustainable development," said Wang Min, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, at an open meeting of the Security Council on the situation in Central Africa.

"Weak economy and rampant transnational organized crime heavily affect social stability," he said, expressing China's concerns.

"We hope the international community would pay more attention and provide practical assistance to central African region," Wang said, adding that China is willing to play a positive and constructive role in it.

China strongly condemned the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) which continues its damaging operations in many countries. China is seriously concerned about the humanitarian problems caused by its activities, Wang said.

"We support regional countries in their efforts to combat the LRA, welcome African Union's regional cooperation initiative and appreciate regional strategy developed by the UN to combat the LRA, " Wang said. "We hope that various actors in international community will enhance communications, coordinate actions and provide sufficient resource guarantee to ensure the effective implementation of the said initiatives and strategy."