Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am so glad to have you with us in Shanghai in
this golden autumn for a review of all the agenda
items of the APEC Ministerial Meeting. Allow me to
extend, on behalf of the Chinese Government, our
warm welcome to all of you.
As
you have seen for yourselves, Shanghai is a vigorous
and dynamic city and an epitome of the rapid
economic and social development in China. It is
making momentous progress in its modernization
drive thanks to the development efforts. The ancient
"Oriental Pearl" is shining more
splendidly in the new century.
The past decade is also one of rapid expansion of
regional cooperation and remarkable achievements
of APEC. APEC has set up Bogor goals of achieving
trade and investment liberalization by 2010 for
developed members and by 2020 for developing ones.
APEC has created a unique approach featuring a
combination of individual and collective actions.
It has vigorously promoted the development of a
multilateral trading regime and carried out
various forms of economic and technical cooperation. There
is no doubt that APEC has become one of the most
important economic forum in the region and even in
the world. It has provided rare opportunities for
dialogue and exchange of views by Leaders of
member economies in the Asia-Pacific and for discussions
on frontier issues related to the global and
regional economy. It has played a guiding role in
the formulation of policy frameworks on many
issues. Therefore, APEC has made positive contribution
to maintaining peace and stability in the
Asia-Pacific and enhancing its economic prosperity
and development.
The APEC
success is attributable not only to the common
aspiration of all its members for a sustainable
economic growth through cooperation but also to
the APEC Approach of voluntarism,
consensus-building, flexibility, and gradualism,
an approach that suits the region. A more
important factor for its success is that it has
stood at the forefront and advanced with the times
in response to the latest development in the global and
regional economy.
This
is the first APEC ministerial meeting in the new century.
We are faced with many new opportunities and
challenges. The economic growth of the world and
the Asia-Pacific has, on the whole, slowed down.
The impact of the terrorist attacks on 11
September on the economy has become visible. How
to promote growth and restore confidence in the
market is an issue on the top of our agenda.
Meanwhile, the development of economic globalization
and the New Economy has brought about more
benefits and business opportunities for the region
and people. But, how to enable people from all
sectors to benefit from it without widening the
development gaps between them is a challenge we must take
up. The multilateral trading system is also at a
crucial juncture. The WTO Conference to be held in
Doha in November has attracted worldwide
attention. In addition, how to give full play to the
unique role of APEC, deepen cooperation and
maintain steady economic growth in the region
against the general economic slowdown in the
Asia-Pacific and the world? These are the issues we must
address.
In view of
this, we have decided on the theme of this year's
APEC meetings, that is, "Meeting New
Challenges in the New Century: Achieving Common
Prosperity through Participation and Cooperation".
In the coming two days, we will discuss the
following issues centering around this
theme:
I. Advancing trade and
investment. We will further exchange views within
APEC on how to contribute to the 4th WTO Ministerial
Conference and make specific recommendations on
capacity building. The individual action plans for
trade and investment liberalization, trade
facilitation principles and other new initiatives will
be main topics of our discussion.
II.Sharing the benefits of
globalization and New Economy. We will discuss
ways to strengthen the tripartite cooperation
among government, business sectors and academic
and training institutions on the basis of the
outcome of the APEC High-Level Meeting on Human
Capacity Building. APEC should establish a more
effective participation mechanism in the course of economic
and technical cooperation. Meanwhile, we will
endorse the e-APEC Strategy, a long-term,
action-oriented strategy for APEC to build a
digital society in the region.
III. Promoting a sustainable economic growth of
the Asia-Pacific region. We hope that our
discussions will help us to expand consensus on
ways to respond to the challenges facing the global
economic situation. We should take effective
fiscal and financial measures to stabilize the
market, restore confidence and facilitate growth
so as to enable all the APEC economies to come out, as
soon as possible, of the economic slowdown and the
shadow of the 11 September terrorist attacks and
onto the road to a sustained and steady growth. To
this end, we will continue to cooperate with
finance ministers, increase dialogues on macro-economic
policies among the APEC members and make progress
in capacity building in the financial sector, with
a view to laying a solid foundation for the future
economic development in the region.
At the same time, we will forge closer ties with a
wide range of groups and organizations and expand
exchanges and cooperation with people from all
walks of life so as to enable the business
community, young people, women and people from
other sectors to benefit from APEC economic
cooperation.
Dear
Colleagues,
Autumn is a season
for harvest. Thanks to the hard work by our
officials over the past few months, all the preparation
work for this year's APEC meetings is by and large
completed. I am convinced that this Ministerial
Meeting will produce rich deliverables in all the
above-mentioned fields to be submitted to this
year's Economic Leaders Meeting. I hope that we will
not only produce practical results but also inject
fresh vigor to APEC development in its second
decade and work out a blueprint for its future
development.
I am sure that I can count on you for your support
to China in chairing this meeting. I hope that you
will demonstrate a practical, flexible and
cooperative spirit in the coming two days. I
believe that with your close collaboration, this meeting
will be a great success.
Thank you.