Three suggestions were made at the 13th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministers' Meeting (FMM) on the practicalities of the assemblies by Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing Thursday in Hanoi.

Firstly, he said, equality in negotiations was required, practical efficiency was important and continuous improvement to the quality of policy debates at FMM was important. Members of APEC should focus on contemporary and future issues, ensure efficiency of policy discussions, substantially boost the opening-up of markets and reduce instabilities in financial markets to bolster global and regional economies, he commented. 

Alongside globalization economies would face more challenges so they are required to strengthen policy discussions, reach consensus on issues and promote the role of APEC, he observed, and these actions would contribute to building a harmonious world.

Second, it was important to implement APEC's cooperation principles and beef up practical cooperation on economy and technique. Historically, making use of the FMM mechanism, many proposals and initiatives on financial cooperation including those on research and training had brought about positive results, the finance minister said. He observed that these involved shared experiences and links had been strengthened. 

APEC economies should further step up practical cooperation, he said. China was willing via the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center to do more work to beef up financial cooperation and heighten regional development.

Third, he identified the promotion of discussions, actively offering guidelines and bringing into play the role of international institutions and the private sector.

The active participation of such institutions, acting as think-tanks and representative of the market, would give a powerful boost to promoting the efficiency of FMM, he said.

APEC finance ministers and the private sector, for the first time, held discussions at the 12th FMM in 2005 in South Korea. Their talks at the 13th meeting lasted for one hour and produced good results.

APEC members should seek new routes for discussions between finance ministers, international institutions and the private sector. This would facilitate the new motive and vitality of APEC for its further development, the Chinese finance minister said.

Also in his speech Jin said China was changing its' trade promotion stance --expanding imports, promoting protection of intellectual property rights and contributing to the development of the region and the world.

Trade between China and APEC members, which annually accounted for 70 percent of the country's foreign trade in recent years, had increased 30 percent each year since 2003, he said.

Of 10 countries and regions with which China had a trade deficit in the first six months of this year, seven were in the Asia-Pacific region, he said. The country's trade deficit stood at US$78.44 billion in that period, he added. 

The 13th FMM, whose themes are "Promoting Public Finance Efficiency and Sustainability Towards Stable and Efficient Revenue Sources," and "Financial Sector Reform to Attract Capital Flows," opened Thursday in Hanoi. It'll issue a joint ministerial statement today.
 
APEC has 21 members including China, the United States, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore and Australia, which account for more than a third of the world's population and over 41 percent of global trade.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2006)