Economy Should Be Stressed At APEC Meetings: ROK OfficialA senior official of the Republic of Korea (ROK) said that his country hopes global economic issues to be stressed during the Shanghai APEC meetings despite anti-terrorism pushing its way on to the agenda of leaders."The global economic issues are our priority concern as well as the challenge that all the leaders are facing, whatever economy they represent," the ROK's APEC senior official Choi Hyuck was quoted as saying by the APEC Newsletter published Tuesday as saying. "We clearly see that this is the critical time for leaders in terms of the current economic situation both in this region and on a global basis," Choi added. He said that leaders have to discuss how they can help and work together to restore the confidence of markets and bring the economy back to sustainable growth. According to the newsletter, published by the China Secretariat for APEC 2001, the world economy showed symptoms of synchronized slowdown even before the September 11 attacks on the United States and in one sense the attacks have dampened the hope that somehow the world can get out of this slowdown quickly. "Most likely the slowdown will be prolonged," Choi said. The ROK saw an 8.8 percent growth rate last year which was supported by strong investment, strong domestic consumption and strong exports and imports, yet the growth rate is most likely to be lowered to 2 to 3 percent this year with exports declining, investment stagnating and private consumption dwindling, he said. The leaders will come out with further ideas on how to revitalize and activate the APEC process and make it a really serious forum, and they are expected to send some essential messages to the market, Choi said. The most important is the leaders' strong support for the launch of a new round of multilateral talks at the Doha ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, Choi said. |
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