UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday spoke highly of the Chinese leadership in focusing the upcoming summit of the Group of 20 (G20) on promoting green growth and bolstering the presence of developing countries.

"I commend China for steering the G20 summit this year in such a successful way leading the G20 towards an action agenda that will come in full support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change," the secretary-general said in an interview with several UN-based Chinese media outlets.

"For the first time in the history of the G20, the Chinese leadership is … aligning the action agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals and the climate change agreement, in their action agenda of the G20," Ban said.

"This is the first time that the G20 leaders are gathering to discuss the Sustainable Development Goals and climate change, (and) how we implement them in parallel," he added.