Officials on youth affairs from China and the 10 member countries of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) adopted a declaration on youth cooperation, Wednesday.

The document, the Beijing Declaration, pledged to enhance exchanges and cooperation between young people to promote common development in the region. The meeting, called the First China-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Youth, vowed to establish a regular exchanging mechanism.
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The declaration also called for a favorable environment for creating job opportunities and starting businesses for the young people in the region.

"Exchanges between young people are conducive to deepening the friendship between China and ASEAN countries and push the economic and cultural cooperation among these countries," said Zhou Qiang, first secretary of Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, speaking at the meeting.

While describing Wednesday's meeting as "historic," Hon. Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV, chairman and chief executive officer of the National Youth Commission of the Philippines, cited this as the first time for China and ASEAN to meet regarding youth.

"As we plan for the future of the youth, we plan for the future of the region; as we plan for the welfare of the youth, we plan for the welfare of the region," he said, during co-chairing the meeting with Zhou.

China and ASEAN have kept an increasingly close relationship in bilateral cooperation of trade and business during recent years, with total trade turnover growing 20.86 percent each year on average.

In 2003, the trade volume between China and ASEAN stood at US$78.25 billion, nearly 150-fold that of 1975.

ASEAN has become China's fifth largest trade partner, while China is the sixth largest trade partner of ASEAN.

In October 2003, China and ASEAN leaders signed a joint declaration in Bali, Indonesia, stating the leaders' commitment to "attach importance to and strengthen youth exchanges and cooperation and establish a ten-plus-one youth ministers meeting mechanism to broaden the base for ever lasting friendship."

On Wednesday's meeting, the China and ASEAN youth ministers also adopted the Joint Work-plan for the First China-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Youth to address the strategies outlined in the Beijing Declaration. They decided to hold the second meeting in Singapore in 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency September 30, 2004)