Three suggestions were made at the 13th Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministers' Meeting (FMM) on the
practicalities of the assemblies by Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing Thursday in Hanoi.
Firstly, he said, equality in negotiations was required,
practical efficiency was important and continuous improvement to
the quality of policy debates at FMM was important. Members of APEC
should focus on contemporary and future issues, ensure efficiency
of policy discussions, substantially boost the opening-up of
markets and reduce instabilities in financial markets to bolster
global and regional economies, he commented.?
Alongside globalization economies would face more challenges so
they are required to strengthen policy discussions, reach consensus
on issues and promote the role of APEC, he observed, and these
actions would contribute to building a harmonious world.
Second, it was important to implement APEC's cooperation
principles and beef up practical cooperation on economy and
technique. Historically, making use of the FMM mechanism, many
proposals and initiatives on financial cooperation including those
on research and training had brought about positive results, the
finance minister said. He observed that these involved shared
experiences and links had been strengthened.?
APEC economies should further step up practical cooperation, he
said. China was willing via the Asia-Pacific Finance and
Development Center to do more work to beef up financial cooperation
and heighten regional development.
Third, he identified the promotion of discussions, actively
offering guidelines and bringing into play the role of
international institutions and the private sector.
The active participation of such institutions, acting as
think-tanks and representative of the market, would give a powerful
boost to promoting the efficiency of FMM, he said.
APEC finance ministers and the private sector, for the first
time, held discussions at the 12th FMM in 2005 in South Korea.
Their talks at the 13th meeting lasted for one hour and produced
good results.
APEC members should seek new routes for discussions between
finance ministers, international institutions and the private
sector. This would facilitate the new motive and vitality of APEC
for its further development, the Chinese finance minister said.
Also in his speech Jin said China was changing its' trade
promotion stance --expanding imports, promoting protection of
intellectual property rights and contributing to the development of
the region and the world.
Trade between China and APEC members, which annually accounted
for 70 percent of the country's foreign trade in recent years, had
increased 30 percent each year since 2003, he said.
Of 10 countries and regions with which China had a trade deficit
in the first six months of this year, seven were in the
Asia-Pacific region, he said. The country's trade deficit stood at
US$78.44 billion in that period, he added.?
The 13th FMM, whose themes are "Promoting Public Finance
Efficiency and Sustainability Towards Stable and Efficient Revenue
Sources," and "Financial Sector Reform to Attract Capital Flows,"
opened Thursday in Hanoi. It'll issue a joint ministerial statement
today.
?
APEC has 21 members including China, the United States, Japan,
Vietnam, Singapore and Australia, which account for more than a
third of the world's population and over 41 percent of global
trade.
(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2006)
