China Attaches Great Importance to China-ASEAN Free-Trade Area

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 24, 2002

China Attaches Great Importance to China-ASEAN Free-Trade Area

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China attaches great importance to the proposed establishment of the China-ASEAN Free-Trade Area, and the two sides have reached consensus on most of the relevant issues, Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng said Wednesday in Los Cabos.

Shi made the remarks during a meeting with his Thai counterpart, Adisai Bhotharamic, on the sidelines of a two-day ministerial meeting being held here in northern Mexico.

Thailand, in its capacity as a leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)'s trade talks with China, has played a great role in promoting progress in the grouping's negotiations with China, said Shi.

He also expressed the hope that China and ASEAN members would make joint efforts to ensure that leaders from both sides eventually sign the China-ASEAN framework agreement on full-scale economic cooperation at a China-ASEAN leaders' meeting scheduled for November in Cambodia.

For his part, Adisai said ASEAN leaders will further coordinatetheir position on the establishment of the free-trade area on the sidelines of the 10th annual meeting of leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum scheduled for October 26-27.

The two ministers also exchanged views on ways of strengtheningbilateral economic and trade relations.

Also on Wednesday, Shi held separate meetings with Canadian Minister of International Trade Pierre Pettigrew, Mexican Secretary of Economy Luis Ernesto Derbez and US Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, on issues of promoting bilateral economic and trade relations, forming strategic partnership among enterprises and the new round of World Trade Organization (WTO) trade talks.

APEC, set up in 1989 in response to the growing interdependenceamong Asia-Pacific economies and to the need to advance Asia-Pacific economic dynamism and sense of community, groups Australia,Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Chinese Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan,South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru,the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

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