Speech by H.E. Hu Jintao

President of the People's Republic of China

At the 13th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting

Busan, ROK, 18 November 2005

President Roh Moo-hyun,

Fellow Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to meet you again in this beautiful city of Busan. I wish to start by expressing my sincere gratitude to President Roh Moo-hyun and the Government of the Republic of Korea for their meticulous and thoughtful arrangements.

Five years into the new century, the international situation continues to undergo complicated and profound changes. The trend of world multi-polarization and economic globalization is developing in depth. Scientific and technological progress is promoting the overall productivity of the world. Countries are obviously more economically interlinked and interdependent. The world economy is in an important period of development opportunities. In the meantime, there are still quite a few unstable and uncertain factors. Frequent regional conflicts and frictions, rampant terrorist activities, widening North-South gap and rising non-traditional security threats all pose severe challenges to mankind. It will be a long and uphill journey for the international community to achieve lasting peace and common prosperity.

Since the beginning of this year, the world economy has maintained a sound momentum of growth with particularly robust growth and good prospects in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, some uncertainties in world and regional economic growth still exist and call for common response from us. APEC should contribute to the steady growth of world and regional economy by giving full play to its own strength and putting forward and implementing policy measures to meet challenges and promote development. To this end, I propose that APEC members focus cooperation on the following three aspects.

First, working together to effectively address the problem of uneven economic development in the world. In the process of economic globalization, a considerable number of developing countries are faced with the danger of being marginalized, more difficulties in their economic development and widening development gap with the developed countries. Development is also uneven among the major economies in the world. These problems, if left unresolved, will jeopardize the momentum of world economic growth. To address the problem of uneven economic development, all parties are required to abide by the principle of responsibility sharing, strengthen policy dialogue and coordination and take common actions. All members should adopt appropriate fiscal and monetary policies, strengthen and improve macro-regulation, promote restructuring, increase domestic demand, open markets to each other and enhance the dynamic of economic development. The developed members should provide assistance to the developing members and help them accelerate development.

All parties should work together to create a fair, harmonious and open international economic environment so as to address the problem of uneven economic development in the world. Ways to resolve disagreements should be explored through dialogue and consultation, in accordance with universally-recognized international rules and in the spirit of mutual understanding and accommodation.

Second, building consensus to jointly promote the healthy development of the multilateral trading regime. The multilateral trading regime is now at a critical juncture. The success of the WTO Doha round bears on the future of international trade as well as the immediate interests of the peoples in the Asia-Pacific countries and the world at large. We should focus on the central task of promoting development, strive to address market access and other issues of concern to the developing members, commit ourselves to realizing the goal of common development and create conditions for balanced and orderly development of the world economy. We should demonstrate sincerity, adopt a flexible and pragmatic approach, expand common ground, honor commitments and bridge differences in an effort to make the forthcoming 6th WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, China a success and promote the early and successful conclusion of the talks.

Both bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements are important channels for promoting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation (TILF). We should encourage free trade agreements that comply with WTO rules and push for coordinated development of bilateral and regional economic cooperation and the multilateral trading regime. APEC should play an active role in guiding the orderly development of free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region.

Third, strengthening coordination to take common action to address hot-button issues. Properly tackling certain hot-button issues in world economic development is a must for achieving balanced and orderly development of world economy. The surging international oil price has brought about negative impacts on the development of the world economy, that of the developing countries in particular. Frequent occurrences of such natural disasters as tsunami and hurricane have inflicted heavy losses on the disaster-stricken countries. The constant outbreak of avian flu has caused serious damage to some countries in this region. We should not underestimate the negative impacts of such problems on the economic development and social stability in the region as well as in the world at large.

It requires our common action to effectively respond to these problems as their causes and impacts are transboundary. We should create and improve mechanisms for cooperation, encourage and support scientific and technological research and development, share information and experience, and carry out well-targeted programs for capacity building. China hosted the APEC Workshop on the Development of Renewable Energy this year and will host the APEC Symposium on Emerging Infectious Diseases next year. We stand ready to cooperate closely with all parties to improve the capability of this region to prevent and respond to emergencies.

Fellow Colleagues,

To build an Asia-Pacific community has been the relentless pursuit of APEC. It is important for us to stick to consensus-building, solidarity for mutual assistance and being flexible and practical, open the market wider to realize TILF, bridge development gap on the leverage of Ecotech cooperation, and deepen cooperation to jointly meet major challenges facing the region. The chosen theme of this APEC meeting, "Towards One Community: Meet the Challenge, Make the Change", has reflected the strong desire and firm resolve of all members to strengthen cooperation.

The Bogor Goals we set in 1994 constitute a landmark in the building of the Asia-Pacific community. To turn the Goals into reality as scheduled will contribute a lot to closing the economic gap between APEC members and achieving common development and prosperity, thus having a bearing on APEC's future.

The mid-term review of the Bogor Goals this year shows that much progress has been made in our march towards these Goals. Trade and investment environment in the region has noticeably improved, Ecotech cooperation has constantly deepened, and more members have benefited from the outcome of cooperation. Meanwhile, we should not fail to see that not all trade barriers have been removed and that the evolving world economic situation poses new challenges to the development of the region. To reach the Bogor Goals on schedule, we must consolidate what we have achieved so far and make new innovations on that basis to substantiate the content of cooperation, broaden cooperation channels and enhance cooperation quality. To that end, we need to balance the following three relationships:

First, the relationship between greater market liberalization and increased Ecotech cooperation. As the two wheels of APEC cooperation, market liberalization and Ecotech cooperation are important means to stimulate regional economic development. They should reinforce each other and be given equal emphasis. We are in favor of strengthening the Individual Action Plan (IAP) and Collective Action Plan (CAP) and promoting TILF in the region through an improved peer review mechanism. We are also in favor of more investment in Ecotech cooperation and better program planning and coordination so that the programs can be better-targeted and more practical to effectively help developing members enhance their ability to develop economy and participate in international competition.

Second, the relationship between strengthening economic cooperation and conducting security cooperation. Since the beginning of this year, many places around the world have been hit by terrorist attacks, inflicting heavy losses of life and property. Counter-terrorism is a prolonged struggle for the international community. We support APEC in doing what is necessary in the field of counter-terrorism to meet the actual need of safeguarding economic and trade safety in the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, we are of the view that the relevant cooperation should support and supplement rather than disrupt or dilute the theme of economic cooperation and should fully accommodate concerns of all sides and properly handle related sensitive issues.

Third, the relationship between implementing existing consensus and exploring new areas of cooperation. We need to first deliver on past promises by unswervingly moving towards the Bogor Goals. Meanwhile, we must adapt ourselves to the changing economic environment in the region and the world at large to conduct cooperation on disaster reduction, health and anti-corruption and explore new channels and areas for more trade and investment cooperation. To keep up APEC's features and efficiency, we should stay focused on priorities without trying to do everything.

This year, APEC has decided to take a series of reform measures, which is of positive significance to its future development. It is hoped that all members will uphold the principles of consensus and voluntarism and deepen their mutually beneficial cooperation to constantly add new vigor and vitality to the growth of APEC.

In short, China stands ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with other APEC members and make contribution to building a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity.

Thank you.