In a meeting with heads of APEC member delegations who are here to attend the ongoing second APEC Investment Mart, Wu said the 21 APEC member economies have exchanged views on trade and economic development in the Asia-Pacific region and the world during the recently concluded APEC Meeting for Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) in Shanghai. She herself has attended the MRT five times, she added.

The participants of this year's APEC MRT reaffirmed APEC's stance of supporting multilateral trade system and called for the early launching of a new round of multilateral trade talks at an early date, she noted.

Meanwhile, they discussed trade and investment liberalization as well as economic and technological cooperation, and reached wide consensus, she said.

Wu noted that the APEC Investment Mart, as the largest APEC investment activity, has offered an important arena for the APEC members to strengthen the investment cooperation and facilitate the investment flow in the Asia-Pacific region.

She said the main theme of the mart is "invest in the Asia- Pacific, invest in the future", which demonstrates the confidence of all relevant parties towards regional economic development.

She noted that despite the impact of the financial crisis in the past few years, economies of the Asia Pacific region are recovering after some necessary readjustments, and facts show that Asia-Pacific economy can develop in a stable and sound manner and the long-term potential for investment in the region is promising.

Ohyoung-Kyo, president of the Trade-Investment Promotion Agency of the Republic of Korea (ROK), on behalf of the delegates, congratulated the opening of the APEC Investment Mart, which he believed will benefit all the member economies.

(People's Daily 06/09/2001)