All the parties attending the Third International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) will enjoy equal treatment in delivering speeches during the meeting, said an official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Beijing Thursday evening.

Zhang Zhijun, deputy head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, made the remark after the closed-door meeting of the ICAPP Standing Committee.

According to Zhang, it was decided at the Standing Committee meeting that the delegations will be divided into three groups and speak in three venues under the three major topics of "regional security and multilateral cooperation, economic growth and social progress, party building and the national development."

The delegations would be divided according to the alphabetic order and parties from a country would speak in different venues, Zhang said. "This is because we want the voice of a party to be heard by more parties from more countries."

The consensus reached during the conference will be put together to form a document and submitted to deputies and the Standing Committee for approval. Once adopted at the plenary session, the document will be published, Zhang said.

The CPC, host of the Third ICAPP, has invited 83 parties from 34 countries to the conference. By 6:30 PM Thursday, delegations of 65 political parties from 29 countries had arrived, and the remaining delegations would come "later tonight or tomorrow morning," said Zhang.

The Third ICAPP will open Friday morning and will last three days.

The ICAPP was initiated in 2000 and the first two conferences were held in the Philippines and Thailand in September 2000 and November 2002, respectively.

(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2004)