Regional Economic Cooperation: New Focus of China's External Trade Relations

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 24, 2003

Regional Economic Cooperation: New Focus of China's External Trade Relations

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The ongoing 5th Asia-Europe Meeting(ASEM) Economic Ministers' Meeting is drawing attention to the fact that China's active participation in and promotion of regional economic cooperation has become a new focus of its external economic relations.

The well-organized meeting, the first in the ASEM framework to be held in China, is evidence that the Chinese government attaches great importance to its external economic affairs.

The meeting is also the first major international conference held in China since the end of the SARS epidemic.

Chinese leaders reiterated at last year's 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that China will work to boost regional economic cooperation and promote bilateral trade with neighboring countries to a higher level.

Since the early 1990s, China has been playing an active role in multilateral trade and regional economic cooperation.

China has joined all of the major regional economic cooperation organizations, including ASEM, APEC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and its economic ties with Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia have been strengthened.

In 2002, trade volume between China and ASEM members reached about 287.5 billion US dollars, accounting for 46.3 percent of its total external trade volume.

Kerk Choo Ting, deputy minister of international trade and industry of Malaysia, expressed the hope that East Asia will become a big economic community.

"China is one of the key players, as well as one of the major economies of Asia and the world, and that's why cooperation with China is essential for Asia-Europe cooperation," said Bekka Lintu, the under-secretary of state for external economic relations of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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