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Auckland, New Zealand
13 September 1999
Prime Minister Jenny Shipley,
Fellow Colleagues,
It gives me great pleasure to come to
the picturesque city of Auckland and attend this meeting.
May I begin by expressing my heart-felt thanks to Prime Minister
Shipley for her kind invitation and to the Government of New
Zealand for its thoughtful arrangements for the meetings.
This year marks the tenth anniversary
of APEC. Over the decade, thanks to the joint efforts of all
its members, our organization, adhering to its purposes of
promoting economic cooperation and achieving common prosperity,
has grown in strength and become one of the most important
economic cooperation organizations in the Asia-Pacific and
even in the entire world. Taking a review of APEC's course
of development, I think there are five points that lead to
its success and that we could draw on.
First, APEC should keep to its nature
as an economic forum and focus on promoting the regional economic
cooperation. This is essential for APEC to play a positive
role and maintain a full vitality.
Second, APEC has gradually developed a
unique cooperation approach of its own, i.e., the universally
recognized "APEC approach". This approach recognizes
diversity and stresses on voluntarism, consensus, flexibility
and gradual progress. Practice proves that these principles
are important factors ensuring development of economic cooperation
among APEC members in the right direction.
Third, given the diversity of AEPC members,
APEC, instead of imposing uniformity, has worked out two timetables
for the implementation of the trade and investment liberalization,
taking into account the disparity of economic development
level of its members and their different capacities to withstand
the impact that the liberalization process may produce.
Fourth, APEC should attach importance
to ECOTEC and take measures to promote scientific and technical
exchanges and cooperation and technology transfer and boost
cooperation in other areas such as the development of infrastructure
and human resources so that APEC's two wheels -- ECOTEC and
the trade and investment liberalization - can move side by
side and jointly bring APEC forward.
Fifth, APEC members should conduct more
studies and discussions on financial issues in the light of
changing circumstances and take relevant measures to maintain
normal financial order and jointly prevent financial risks.
The twentieth century is coming to an
end and the new century is dawning upon the world. Where should
APEC go in the new era? This is a question that we leaders
of APEC members are pondering over now. The Asia-Pacific cannot
develop in isolation of the rest of the world. At present,
the international situation is, on the whole, still developing
towards relaxation. But the world is not yet tranquil. Neither
of the two major tasks of the world, namely peace and development,
has been accomplished. Moreover, they are faced with new challenges.
Destabilizing and uncertain factors have visibly increased.
It is widely felt that the world we live in is far from peaceful.
Under such complex circumstances, we the leaders are all the
more required to work unswervingly to promote the lofty cause
of peace and development in the fundamental interests of the
people of our own nations and of the world, and in keeping
with the historical trend. We should build our homeland of
the Asia-Pacific into a region of peace, stability, development
and prosperity in the 21st century. There are now two tasks
before APEC: one is to firmly maintain peace and stability
in the Asia-Pacific; the other is to further promote the economic
growth of the region. APEC can and should play its due role
in these two aspects. I think that in order for APEC to maintain
its vitality and make greater contributions to the regional
and world economic prosperity, we should do a good job in
the following six areas:
First, actively promote common economic
prosperity in the Asia-Pacific. All members of APEC have been
affected by the Asian financial crisis to a varying extent,
and some members have suffered enormous losses. It is therefore
a most pressing common task to overcome these adverse impacts
and promote common progress of all member economies. APEC
members, developing members in particular, should continue
to strengthen the readjustment and reform of their respective
economic structures. In the meantime, the developed members
on their part should make a vigourous effort to provide favourable
conditions, such as implementing a positive and responsible
fiscal and monetary policy and maintaining the stability of
major currencies, so as to help create a good environment
for an all-round development and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific
economy. APEC should play its part in strengthening coordination
and dialogues on macro-economic policies among its members,
especially between developed and developing members, and in
minimizing any possible negative impact of economic globalization.
Second, actively deepen regional economic
and technical cooperation so as to lay a solid foundation
for medium- and long-term development of the Asia-Pacific.
APEC members should always bear in mind their long-term interests
in their pursuit of economic growth. They should place more
emphasis on strengthening their own capacity and pay greater
attention to addressing the deep-rooted problems that hinder
the long-term regional economic development. APEC should seek
substantial progress in ECOTEC. To be more specific, it should
strengthen cooperation in areas such as scientific and technical
exchanges, human resources and infrastructure development,
improve the investment and trade environment so as to ensure
a stable and sustained development of the Asia-Pacific economy.
Third, actively and steadily push forward
the process of trade and investment liberalization and promote
a sound development of the multilateral trading system. Considerable
progress has been made in the process of the APEC trade and
investment liberalization. To participate in the process,
developing members have made a great effort to overcome their
many difficulties. It is regrettable, however, in the aftermath
of the Asian financial crisis, trade protectionism of various
sorts targeted at developing countries has made a comeback.
This is detrimental not only to the economic recovery of the
crisis-stricken members, but also to the development of the
multilateral trading system. And it will do no good to the
developed members either. APEC members, especially the developed
ones, should proceed from the overall interest of the regional
economic cooperation and take effective measures to curb the
trade protectionism, further open their markets to developing
members, and expand regional trade. The World Trade Organization
(WTO) has played an important role in the growth of global
trade, but it is still not as complete and broadly representative
as it should be. As an organization that carries considerable
weight in the international economic affairs, APEC should
contribute to the protection of interests of all its members
and the improvement of the multilateral trading system.
Fourth, actively strengthen the cooperation
in the international financial field and promote the establishment
of a new, fair and rational international financial order.
Finance is the core of modern economy. The stability of the
international finance bears on the immediate interests of
all APEC members and the stability and development of the
regional economy. To ward off financial risks and prevent
the recurrence of financial crisis is an important task for
all members. In view of this, the financial order should be
reformed and improved, and efforts should be made to ensure
a safe and orderly operation of the international financial
market. In this connection, the developed members should make
greater efforts to strengthen the monitoring and regulation
of international capital flow, check any excessive speculation
of international hot money, and help developing members enhance
their ability to forecast and fend off such speculation. In
the meantime, the choice independently made by countries or
regions concerned on how to overcome the impact of financial
crisis should be well respected and no country should seek
to impose its own system and modality on others.
Fifth, firmly adhere to the right development
direction of APEC and maintain the vigour and vitality of
the organization. APEC has developed its unique "APEC
approach" which is different from any other organization.
Adherence to this approach will lead APEC to growth; any attempt
to change or abandon it will inevitably result in difficulties
and setbacks for the development of APEC. Whatever happens,
we should stick to the basic principles of APEC, for only
by so doing can we make greater contribution to the stability
and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region.
Sixth, actively press ahead with the mutually
beneficial cooperation among APEC members. The decades following
the end of World War II witnessed a rapid rise of Third World
countries. The developing countries and regions in East Asia,
in particular, have created world-impressive economic miracles.
Although developing countries are still faced with many difficulties,
they are and have always been an important force on the international
arena. With vast territories, abundant resources and a large
population, developing countries have enormous potentials
for development. To strengthen South-South cooperation is
the common aspiration of all developing nations. And it is
also an important issue in today's international relations
and represents the direction of historical development and
a symbol of world progress. The developing members of APEC
should all give full play to their respective strong points
and complement each other with their advantages. And they
should also develop and conduct a wide-ranging South-South
economic cooperation and promote common development and common
prosperity.
We are pleased to note that thanks to
their hard efforts in the past two years, the crisis-hit economies
of some of the Asia-Pacific countries have bottomed out, and
are gradually recovering and developing in a good direction.
This is an encouraging development. Let us join hands and
seize this opportunity. Let us strengthen mutual coordination
and cooperation in the light of our actual conditions and
make unremitting efforts to promote all-round economic development
and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific.
Thank you.
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