Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen, friends:
I am delighted to be in Weihai to attend the East Asia Investment Forum 2006. On behalf of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, I'd like to extend congratulations on this forum and welcome to all the guests.
Peace, development and cooperation are the trends of the times. The deepening economic globalization and world multi-polarization and the greater attention paid by countries to dialogue and coordination bring about favorable development opportunities to mankind. Under the overall stable international situation, regional cooperation in Asia is accelerating, which has become a major characteristic of regional situation.
East Asian cooperation is both the pioneer and showcase of cooperation in the entire Asia. Over the past decade cooperation in East Asia started from scratch and has gradually developed the cooperative mechanism with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as the core, the 10+3 as the major channel and the East Asian Summit as the supplement. Having achieved remarkable progresses, cooperation in East Asia has become an important symbol of solidarity and cooperation in the region. The academic research on the feasiblity of East Asian free trade area is coming to the end, bilateral and multilateral free trade arrangements in various forms are emerging, the regional financial cooperation has made substantial achievements, the Chiang Mai Initiative has made a major step towards multilateralism and the cooperation in such fields as poverty alleviation, social development and culture goes increasingly deep.
East Asian cooperation builds up the mutual understanding and trust among countries, develops the common sense of East Asia, raises the entire regional development level and enjoys a sound momentum. Today, East Asian cooperation has gone beyond the pure geographic concept and moves towards an economic, political, security and cultural cooperative mechanism and a major force for regional peace, development and prosperity.
Ladies and gentlemen:
China attaches great importance to and plays an active part in East Asian cooperation. It is our hope that East Asian cooperation will help us strengthen the good-neighborly friendship and cooperation with other East Asian countries, maintain a peaceful and stable neighboring environment, realize the common development and prosperity of the Chinese economy and other economies in East Asia and build an objective and friendly public opinion environment for our development.
In short, China's policies toward East Asian cooperation mainly cover the following aspects:
I. Focusing on common interest and promoting common development. East Asian countries are close neighbors of China and their development and prosperity have a direct influence on China's development strategies and prospects. While conducting friendly cooperation with other East Asian countries at the bilateral level, China will use the multilateral platform of East Asian cooperation to expand the common interest with other East Asian countries and realize the fundamental task of development and prosperity.
II. Focusing on real conditions and solving real problems. Most East Asian countries take the pursuit of development as their primary task. China also faces the basic task of building a well-off society in an all-round way. Based on the real conditions of the region and the needs of different countries, China will work with all parties concerned to conduct pragmatic cooperation in various fields, enhance economic and social progresses, cut down the development gap and realize the comprehensive and balanced development of the region.
III. Being open and inclusive and striving for understanding and support. China always holds that East Asian cooperation should be transparent and open and opposes the closed and exclusive East Asian cooperation targeted at any third party. We support pushing forward East Asian cooperation with an open mind, advocate the open regionalism and welcomes other countries and regional organizations to be involved in East Asian cooperation and play constructive roles for the stability and development of East Asia.
IV. Going forward step-by-step and realizing win-win cooperation. In East Asia there are both developed and developing countries with fairly big differences in terms of economic and social development. China maintains that cooperation should start from the most needed and workable areas and move ahead with a pace and model comfortable to all and the challenges of globalization should be coped with through mutually beneficial cooperation.
"One lark does not make a spring, and it is spring only when all the flowers are blooming." The development of one or several countries does not constitute the real development and prosperity of East Asia, and the real hope of sustained prosperity and progress of East Asia lies in the common prosperity of all countries in the region. China insists on the peaceful, open and cooperative development, which complies with the objectives of other countries in the region of seeking rejuvenation and progress. China's development will first of all brings about opportunities to East Asia while prosperity in East Asia will in turn benefit China.
Ladies and gentlemen:
Investment cooperation is a major content and driving force of cooperation in East Asia and draws wide attention from all countries in this region. Today, East Asia enjoys peace, stability and prosperity and maintains a rapid economic growth, with 56% of trade within the region and adequate foreign exchange reserves. Economic restructuring in the region is advancing steadily. The East Asian economy is facing with greater development opportunities and has increasing demands for investment cooperation. Therefore, to further strengthen investment cooperation complies with the trend of deepening regional cooperation and enjoys wide political aspirations and sound conditions. To maintain the sound investment channels, improve the investment mechanism and expand investment volume will optimize the regional economic structure considerably and provide stable and reliable capital guarantee for enhancing economic growth efficiency and quality.
The East Asia Investment Forum builds an important dialogue and cooperation platform for the government officials, businessmen and scholars in this region to discuss investment cooperation. I hope that all parties concerned can use this platform to strengthen policy communication and pragmatic cooperation and discuss effective ways for raising investment cooperation. I believe that this forum, based on the achievements of last year's forum, will surely achieve more fruitful results and play an important role in stimulating the East Asian cooperation.
In conclusion, I wish the East Asia Investment Forum 2006 a complete success!
Thank you.