Chinese President Jiang Zemin read to the press the Leaders'
Declaration of
the Ninth
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders
Meeting in Shanghai on Sunday afternoon.
Jiang said,
"We, as APEC Economic Leaders, have just had our first meeting in
the twenty-first century. In many ways, this meeting has taken
place at a crucial moment, a moment of great hope as well as
imposing challenges. Certain of the vast potential of our region,
we have resolved to meet those challenges and achieve common
prosperity through broad participation and close cooperation.
As
a top priority, we reviewed the global and regional economic
situation. Here is our clear message for the market: We have full
confidence in the medium and long-term growth prospects for the
Asia-Pacific. Our confidence is grounded in the belief that the
fundamentals in our economies remain sound. We did recognize,
however, that the current slowdown has dampened the short-term
outlook for the region, and that the downside risks have been
increased by the impact of the terrorist attack on the US on
September 11th. There is consensus among us that APEC must act to
reverse the downturn.
We
undertook to adopt pro-growth policies not only to tide over the
current difficulties but also to build a stronger foundation for
sustained growth and broad-based development. We agreed that it is
particularly important for major economies to act quickly and
decisively to stabilize markets, boost global demand and facilitate
an early pick-up in global economic activity. And we further agreed
on the need for accelerated structural reform.
The slowdown underlines, above all, the imperative of APEC staying
its course towards more open and stronger economies. We thus
renewed our support for APEC as the primary forum for regional
economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific.
We
are determined to ensure that all individuals in our communities
benefit from the opportunities of globalization and the New
Economy. We emphasized that economic and technical cooperation and
capacity building is instrumental to achieve that objective. We
endorsed the Beijing Initiative adopted at the High-Level Meeting
on Human Capacity Building and called for its implementation, said
the Chinese president.
We
also delivered a long-term, forward-looking and action-oriented
e-APEC Strategy for the development of the New Economy. It stresses
the better and wider use of advances in information and
communications technology. Its goal is to build APEC towards a
digital society, with higher growth, more jobs and better qualities
of life.
We
reaffirmed our unyielding commitment to free and open trade and
investment both within our region and globally, and resolved to
work together to fight against protectionism in all forms. We
strongly support an open, equitable and rules-based Multilateral
Trading System, and the launch of the WTO new round at the upcoming
WTO Ministerial Conference. This has assumed added urgency in the
context of the current slowdown. In this connection, we applauded
the impending accession of China and others to the WTO. This
historic step will not only make WTO a truly world organization but
also reinforce the underpinnings for global economic
cooperation.
We
realized that given the challenges we face, we must remain fully
committed to APEC's Bogor Goals of free and open trade and
investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for developed economies and
2020 for developing economies. We reaffirmed our faith in the
unique APEC Approach, We also recognized that APEC must advance
with the times. Its dynamism lies in responding and adapting to
changes in the world and regional economy.
To
this end, we announce today the Shanghai Accord as a strategic,
forward agenda for the development of APEC in the coming years. The
Accord not only voices our common resolve to fulfill our
commitments, it also stands as a template laying out some key steps
towards our Goals and Objectives. In the Shanghai Accord, we commit
to:
--
First, broadening APEC's vision for the future by setting up a
conceptual and policy framework to guide APEC in the new
century;
--
Second, clarifying APEC's roadmap for the Bogor Goals by broadening
and updating the Osaka Action Agenda, adopting a new pathfinder
approach whereby those that are ready can take the lead in
advancing APEC initiatives, promoting appropriate trade policies
for the New Economy, following up on the APEC Trade Facilitation
Principles and pursuing greater transparency in economic
governance; and
--
Third, strengthening APEC's implementation mechanism with a
stronger IAP Peer Review process and greater Ecotech and capacity
building efforts.
In
view of the gravity of the terrorist attack on the United States,
we went out of our way to discuss the issue of counter-terrorism in
the course of our meeting. We condemned in the strongest term the
attack as an affront to peace, prosperity and security of all
people, of all faiths, of every nation. We vowed to strengthen our
cooperation at the United Nations and other organizations like APEC
to mitigate the impact on our economies, and to prevent and stop
future terrorist acts in any form and anywhere in the world.
Let me conclude by sharing with you this strong belief we cherish
among APEC Leaders: With our concerted efforts, the vision we set
here today will no doubt come to full fruition. APEC will grow into
a closer and stronger partnership for building a thriving
Asia-Pacific community."
Attending the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting are Australian Prime
Minister John Howard, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien,
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar, Hong Kong Chief Executive
Tung Chee-hwa, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, South Korean President Kim
Dae-jung, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, New Zealand
Prime Minister Helen Clark, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Chinese
President Jiang Zemin, Mexican President Vicente Fox, Papua New
Guinea Prime Minister Mekere Morauta, Peruvian President Alejandro
Toledo, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong,
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, US President George W. Bush
and Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai.
The APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China,
Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia,
Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and
Vietnam.
(Xinhua News
Agency October 21, 2001)