Forum an important platform of Asian economy (Xinhua) Updated: 2004-04-23 14:18
Over 1,000 officials, business leaders and scholars from across the world
have arrived in China's coastal province of Hainan by Friday to explore ways to
further open Asia to the world, touting the continent's ambition of economic and
cultural integration.
As this year's annual conference of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) attracted more
participants from other parts of the world, and took a more open attitude to
discuss Asian issues in a global political, economic and cultural framework, the
Asia-oriented forum is playing an increasingly important roles in regional
governance.
BFA was founded in 2001 against the backdrop of Asian financial crisis and
the Asian country's subsequent seeking for regional economic cooperation and
ways to umbrella financial risks.
Thanks to the forum and other economic alliances, the pace of Asian economic
cooperation has been significantly quickened.
So far, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had
reached an agreement to establish a free trade zone in ten years. Ten ASEAN
countries have decided to establish an integrated economic bloc by 2020. Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) also decided to further strengthen links
between member nations and promote free trade and investment.
At the same time, BFA, which vowed to provide authoritative suggestions to
Asia-related issues, have grew into an important think tank in promoting
regional economic integration.
Previous BFA conferences include extensive discussions on many development
issues in Asia such as monetary and financial cooperation, sustainable
development, media industrialization and reached many agreements in related
issues.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and
Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong voiced a common wish of promoting
economic cooperation and integration in Asia and realize prosperity in Asia at
last year's BFA conference.
Participants attending the 2003 conference also exchanged views on
establishing effective mechanism of governmental administration, economic
development and social coordination to facilitate Asian development, making the
BFA event more practical and down-to-earth compared with previous BFA
conferences. As a subsequent development of last year's conference, the 2004 BFA
annual conference, slated to be held on April 24-25 in Boao, Hainan, focuses on
the topic of "Asia Searching for Win-Win: An Asia Open to the World". The topic
stressing openness of Asian development will remain focus of discussion in
future BFA congregations.
At present, BFA has established close ties with international organizations
such as World Trade Organization, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and World
Tourism Organization, making the forum an influential and irreplaceable platform
of Asian integration and settling regional issues.