Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan has called on the international community to "act together" at the upcoming London summit to get through the global financial crisis, in an article published by the British newspaper The Times on Friday.
In the article entitled "G20 must look beyond the needs of the top 20," with a subtitle "China believes the developing world should have a stronger say in how the international financial system is run," Wang urged all heads of states to be present at the G20 London summit to "act together to get through the time of hardship."
After the financial crisis broke out, China was quick to put in place a decisive plan to boost domestic demand, advance economic restructuring and improve people's well-being, which have started to produce results, said the vice premier.
However, the Chinese economy still faces severe challenges, including to meet the demanding goal of maintaining economic growth by boosting domestic demand, ensuring employment and readjusting the economic structure. China also has to cope with shrinking external demand caused by the global economic downturn and trade and investment protectionism, Wang said.
"China will continue to take forceful measures to maintain steady and fast economic growth and contribute its share to an early recovery of the world economy," Wang pledged in the article.
Since the G20 summit in Washington last year, said Wang, China has provided a lot of assistance and support through a variety of means to a number of countries and regions, and played a part in the creation of significant Asian and global economic and trade initiatives.
The Chinese leader stressed the significance of the international community to enhance coordination and cooperation to overcome the current difficulties.
"Efforts should be made to expand trade and investment cooperation to bolster economic growth, step up cooperation among small and medium-size businesses to ensure employment stability, and strengthen cooperation in energy conservation and emissions' reduction, environmental protection and development of new energy technologies to nurture growth points for the world economy," Wang suggested.
He firmly rejected trade and investment protectionism of all kind. "The international community should recognise that the trend towards economic globalization is irreversible and should take credible steps to reject all forms of trade and investment protectionism," he said.
Wang also called on the international financial system to be reformed, "with the focus on readjusting the governance structure of international financial institutions and increasing the representation and voice of developing countries." He asked the London summit to set a clear goal, timetable and road-map for such reform.
To prevent similar crisis from happening again, Wang, also a Chinese economic expert, suggested prudent regulation of all financial markets and institutions involved to be tightened and regulatory coordination and cooperation at both the regional and international levels to be increased.
On the hot topic of increasing financial resources for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said China supports the increase as far as the fund is safe and reasonable returns can be ensured.
"China is ready to play an active part in exploring ways to raise resources and will contribute to this effort within its ability," Wang said. He asked the IMF to mobilise resources through the "quota-based" system as well as voluntary contributions, striking a balance between the rights and obligations of the contributing countries.
As a return, said the Chinese vice premier, the IMF must enhance capacity-building, reform governance structure and ensure that the resources play a significant role in easing the international financial crisis and countering the global economic downturn. China inclines to see the resources mainly to be used to help developing countries which are seriously hit by the crisis, Wang said.
Leaders of the world's 20 largest economies will meet in London on Thursday to discuss, among other things, a coordinated response to the current global financial crisis.
(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2009)
