The Chinese Ambassador to Britain Fu Ying said Monday that at the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) Summit in London, member states should strengthen cooperation to cope with the financial crisis jointly as "the world, hit by a most serious crisis once in a hundred years, faces rare opportunity for coordinated international cooperation."
"It is of great significance for the developing nations and developed ones, sitting together on equal footing within the framework of the G20, to discuss the global financial crisis," said Fu in a interview with Chinese journalists ahead of the G20 Summit on Thursday.
To China, said Fu, the London Summit is an important opportunity for international cooperation.
Although the London Summit could not solve all the problems, it is extremely important under the current circumstances for more than 20 developing and developed countries to speak with one voice and show determination and confidence in fighting the crisis, she added.
The London Summit, to be held nearly five months after the Nov.15 G20 Summit in Washington, is expected to discuss how to strengthen coordination in macro-economic policies, tighten international financial supervision, stabilize international financial market and reform the international financial organizations.
Apart from the United States, the European Union (EU), major European economies and Japan, the emerging economies including Brazil, China, India and Russia will also attend the London Summit.
Fu expressed her hope that the world leaders can reach consensus on some important issues at the summit, adding that without international cooperation, the global financial crisis would be difficult to be overcome.
At the London Summit, Fu said, the G20 members need to consider how to solve the issues which draw the most attention from the public to contribute to world stability and development.
"At this meeting, everybody cares more about what can be done together rather than to find differences," said Fu. She expressed the hope that the meeting could jointly voice strong opposition to trade protectionism and to the decrease of aid to developing countries due to the financial crisis, and categorically support reform of the international financial institutions and set a timetable for such reform.
She said China has its own expectations from the summit, hoping that the results of the meeting will raise the confidence in the international market and send a positive signal for the world economy to rebound.
"In the face of the unprecedented difficulties, the international community should demonstrate unprecedented solidarity, courage and confidence, and deal with global challenges through worldwide cooperation," said Fu.
"China hopes that the London Summit will embody the spirit of harmony, cooperation and looking-ahead, and turn out to be a morale-boosting and fruitful meeting," the Chinese ambassador added.
On the issue of increasing loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Fu said that China supports increases in the loans, but holds that such increases should be made on the basis of each country's reasonable share.
China is willing to discuss with other parties the ways to raise funds, and is ready to contribute within its capability in the respect under the prerequisite of loans safety and reasonable returns, said Fu.
China holds that should the IMF funds be increased, they should focus on helping poor developing nations which have been hit hard by the financial crisis.
Meawhile, Fu also pointed out that the scale of funds to the IMF should not be decided according to the sum of a country's foreign reserves.
For the emerging economies like China, their currencies are still not fully convertible, and therefore they need to keep big foreign reserves to meet the needs of trade and investment.
(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2009)
