China to boost economic co-op with E.Asian countries

BEIJING -- China will further strengthen financial, economic and trade cooperation with East Asian countries at the upcoming East Asia leaders meetings, senior officials from China's finance and commerce ministries told a press briefing on Monday.

Chinese Vice-Minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao and Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Yan made the remarks at a press briefing about Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Brunei, Thailand and Vietnam and his attendance of East Asia leaders meetings.

Li will make the three-leg Southeast Asia trip from Oct 9 to 15 at the invitation of Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

During his trip to Seri Begawan, Li will attend the 16th China-ASEAN leaders meeting, the 16th ASEAN plus three (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea) summit and the 8th East Asia Summit to be held in Brunei, the chair nation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Zhu said financial cooperation in East Asia region is at a historical key stage and the ASEAN+3 (10+3) financial cooperation has achieved important and concrete results.

He said the current priorities of the cooperation lie in the improvement of the effectiveness of Chiang Mai initiative Multilateralization, upgrade of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office to an international organization and further development of Asian bond market.

"Meanwhile, the economy in East Asia is facing challenges. The inefficient infrastructure construction in developing countries in the region has become the bottleneck of economic development. China suggests to make preparations for establishing the Asian infrastructure Investment Bank and is willing to provide financial support to infrastructure construction in developing countries in the region," Zhu said.

Zhu added that the bank will also cooperate with exiting multilateral development banks and complement each other to make joint efforts for sustainable and stable economic growth in Asia.

Gao briefed the media on the highlights of trade between China and ASEAN.

She noted that the bilateral trade volume is expected to reach $500 billion before 2015 and China has become the biggest trading partner and largest source of tourists for ASEAN.