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.