On October 21, 2009, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a briefing for Chinese and foreign media on Premier Wen Jiabao's upcoming attendance of the 12th China-ASEAN (10+1) Summit, the 12th ASEAN plus 3 (10+3) Summit and the 4th East Asia Summit. Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue, Director-General of the International Department of Ministry of Finance Zheng Xiaosong, Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation of Ministry of Agriculture Wang Ying, Director-General of the Department of Asian Affairs of Ministry of Commerce Lv Kejian and commercial counselor of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs of Ministry of Commerce Zhang Kening introduced the background of relevant summits and China's cooperation with ASEAN in related areas respectively. Deputy Director-General of the Information Department of MFA Qin Gang chaired the briefing.

Hu Zhengyue said that this year the East Asian summits will be held against the background that countries in the region have maintained the momentum of cooperation in actively coping with the international financial crisis. The Chinese side attaches great importance to the summits and will exchange opinions with related parties on deepening East Asian cooperation as well as other regional and international issues of common concern and endeavor to achieve positive and pragmatic results in the spirit of consolidating confidence, reinforcing cooperation, translating crisis into opportunities and promoting development.

The Chinese side is looking forward to making progress in the following areas:

First, consolidate confidence and build up strength. East Asian countries should continue to give top priority to the task of tackling the international financial crisis, communicate fully on how to promote the healthy recovery of regional and world economy and send the positive message to the rest of the world that Asian countries will strengthen solidarity and make persistent efforts to promote the stable and healthy economic and financial development in the region and the world at large.

Second, carry on the past and open a way for the future. Participating countries should review the progress of cooperation under 10+1, 10+3 and East Asia Summit, concentrate discussions on how to promote the pragmatic cooperation, draw on collective wisdom, complement various mechanisms with each other's advantages, share opportunities and inject vigor into the sustainable development of East Asia.

Third, improve communication and expand consensus. East Asian countries will exchange opinions on such global issues as reform of the international economic and financial system, climate change, food security, energy security, public health security and natural disasters for the purpose of jointly maintaining regional and world peace and stability.

He said that during the summits Premier Wen will introduce China's measures of addressing the international financial crisis and results of those measures, elaborate China's views and proposition on strengthening East Asian cooperation and raise specific proposals on cooperation in the fields of economy and trade, investment, infrastructure construction, agriculture, finance, education and culture under the framework of 10+1 and 10+3. He will reiterate China's commitment to supporting the integration of ASEAN and ASEAN's efforts of narrowing its internal development gap. China will, as always, support and assist the less developed members of ASEAN within its own capacity. He will also share opinions with leaders of other countries on the major international and regional issues of common interest.

Hu stressed that the upcoming participation of Premier Wen in the East Asian summits is another major diplomatic activity of China with surrounding countries. It will further consolidate and enhance China's good-neighborly friendship with those countries, broaden and deepen East Asian cooperation and promote peace, stability and common development in the region.

Zheng Xiaosong noted that the fiscal and financial cooperation in East Asia has made major progress in the follows aspects:

First, major substantive progress has been achieved in the multilateral process of Chiang Mai Initiative aiming at building a regional financial rescue mechanism. Parties concerned have decided that the total volume of the proposed regional reserve pool will be US$120 billion and reached consensus on the share allocation, contribution form, credit line, decision-making mechanism and regional economic surveillance mechanism. It is expected to officially complete the building of the reserve pool by the end of this year or beginning of next year.

Second, Asian bond market has achieved positive progress. Parties concerned agreed to establish the regional credit guarantee and investment mechanism fund with an initial size of about US$500 million to support the local-currency bond issuance within the region.

Third, countries have kept close communications on their financial and fiscal policies. The 10+3 regional economic policy dialogue mechanism has taken an initial shape. East Asian countries have also actively exchanged views on the macroeconomic and financial situation as well as relevant policy measures through various forms like multilateral and bilateral dialogue and international workshops.

Zheng said that China is a strong supporter and promoter of East Asian fiscal and financial cooperation. By the end of 2008, under the framework of Chiang Mai Initiative, China has signed 6 bilateral currency swap agreements worth altogether US$23.5 billion with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia in which China promised a total fund of US$16.5 billion. After the outbreak of international financial crisis, China has signed bilateral currency swap agreements with some East Asian countries outside the framework of Chiang Mai Initiative with a total volume of RMB 360 billion. China is unswervingly promoting the multilateral process of Chiang Mai Initiative and supports the efforts of building the regional reserve pool as soon as possible in order to strengthen the crisis relief capability within this region. It actively promotes the initiative on developing Asian bond market and has participated in the studies on promoting local-currency bond issuance, increasing the demand for local currency bonds, improving regulatory framework and intensifying bond market infrastructure construction.

He indicated that East Asia still has a long way to go to strengthen the fiscal and financial cooperation, enhance the overall capacity of the region to withstand financial risks and cultivate in-depth, efficient and dynamic regional financial market. China expects to make continuous efforts with parties concerned to maintain the economic and financial stability and deepen the economic integration within the region.

Wang Ying introduced the China-ASEAN agricultural cooperation. He noted that the cooperation channels under the 10+1 mechanism mainly include human resources development, overseas agricultural technology experimental demonstrations, agricultural technology exchanges and business and trade promotion. Since 2008, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has input RMB15 million under the framework of 10+1 for 36 exchange and cooperation projects, including 21 trainings attended by over 300 agricultural management and technical staffs from ASEAN member states and implemented 9 small-scale agricultural technology pilot demonstration projects and 7 technical exchange programs. It has also held 3 trade promotion activities for farm products. Under the 10+3 mechanism, China is an active participant in the East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve (EAERR) program under which it has promised a special reserve of 300,000 tons of rice. China has held the ASEAN food security information system training consecutively for 6 years and hosted and attended the East Asia new plant variety protection forum as well.

In order to raise the 10+3 regional agricultural cooperation to a higher level, China initiated the East Asia Food Security Cooperation Strategic Roundtable with the purpose of building a permanent mechanism of cooperation dialogue. It has also initiated the 10+3 biomass forum which serves as a regional platform of exchanges and cooperation to promote renewable energy technologies in rural China, advance regional biomass development and utilization and protect the ecological environment.

He pointed out that China and ASEAN member states share complementary advantages in terms of resources, experience, fund, technology and expertise. Both sides will focus future exchange and cooperation on food security, biomass, cross-border plant and animal disease prevention and control, fishery, agriculture machinery and farm product processing. For instance, China will implement the action plan on comprehensively enhancing food security ability jointly with ASEAN member states, including launching the high-yield crop demonstration fields program, disseminating China's high-yielding varieties as well as advanced and practical farming techniques and management experience and building agricultural technological R&D centers. In the next 3 years, China will train 1,000 agricultural professionals for other Asian countries.

Lv Kejian said that China-ASEAN economic and trade relations have gained long-term development and remarkable outcomes.

First, trade volume continues growing. According to the Chinese statistics, the bilateral trade value numbered US$202.5 billion in 2007, reaching the target of US$200 billion in advance. It grew further to US$231.1 billion in 2008, up 14% over 2007. At present, ASEAN is the fourth biggest trade partner, fourth largest export market and third biggest destination of import of China. The imported and exported goods between China and ASEAN have grown increasingly diversified.

Second, bilateral investment keeps expanding. The Chinese statistics show that the bilateral mutual investment has exceeded US$60 billion as of the first half of 2009. ASEAN member states are one of the major sources of foreign investment to China and one of the main destinations of Chinese overseas investment. According to the Chinese statistics, investment of Chinese companies in ASEAN in 2008 increased by 156.6% over the previous year and covered many sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and processing industries and service industry.

Third, economic cooperation has show initial results. In recent years, China has provided various forms of financing support for ASEAN countries, participated in a number of infrastructure cooperation projects and played an active role of promoting their local economic and social development.

Fourth, China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone will be built as scheduled and the sub-regional cooperation proceeds stably. China and ASEAN officially signed the Investment Agreement and China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone will be completed comprehensively by January1, 2010 as scheduled. The Greater Mekong Sub-region economic cooperation project grows more and more pragmatic, Pan-Beibu Bay economic cooperation moves forward steadily and China's cooperation with East ASEAN Growth Area has made positive progress.

Lv noted that the ever expanding economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has brought about tangible benefits to both sides. China attaches great importance to and is committed to developing economic and trade relations with ASEAN with focus first on tapping potential to promote stable growth of bilateral trade, second on increasing mutual investment, particularly China's investment in ASEAN member states, third on strengthening infrastructure construction cooperation and fourth on boosting regional and sub-regional cooperation.

Zhang Kening pointed out that China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone will become China's first free trade zone with foreign countries and the biggest free trade zone composed of developing countries covering a population of nearly 1.9 billion and about US$6 trillion of GDP aggregate. In 2008, China-ASEAN trade volume exceeded US$230 billion. Once the Free Trade Zone is built, China and ASEAN will basically realize free trade and the bilateral economic integration will reach an unprecedented level since tariff will no longer be a major obstacle to the bilateral trade. To implement the free trade agreement effectively and enable businesses to have timely access to authoritative information, both sides have decided to jointly build the commercial portal of the free trade zone. In addition, they are going to hold the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone Forum in Guangxi province January next year. Based on the efforts of building the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, China will actively promote the East Asian economic integration process with 10+3 as the major channel.

The officials also answered questions of journalists in the following aspects.

To further lift up the bilateral economic cooperation, China has decided that the Export-Import Bank of China will set up the China-ASEAN investment cooperation fund in accordance with commercial principles. The total size of the fund will be US$10 billion with the first phase being US$1 billion. At present, the Export-Import Bank of China is preparing for the establishment of fund management company and first-phase fundraising effort. The fund will mainly be used to support major projects of infrastructure construction, energy sources and information communication of ASEAN member states and can take equity, quasi-equity, investment fund and other forms to conduct investment and cooperation. China welcomes investors including institutions of ASEAN members to continue to get involved in the capital raising of the fund.

The 10+3 regional reserve pool is of major realistic significance to maintaining regional economic and financial stability. First, it will lift the loosely-organized bilateral assistance network to relatively close multilateral fund relief mechanism and improve regional fiscal and financial cooperation. Second, it will offer financial support in the form of credit to those members who suffer liquidity difficulties in case of crisis, which will help the region to build capacity of withstanding financial risks and serve as a strong supplement to the international financial assistance offered by IMF. Third, to ensure the smooth operation of the reserve pool, parties concerned will start to build the independent regional economic surveillance organization, which is also beneficial to the region to strengthen risk alarming and prevention ability.

As to promoting the building of China-Japan-South Korea free trade zone, leaders of the three countries have reached consensus on launching the China-Japan-South Korea free trade zone government-industry-university joint research at the earliest date possible. During the upcoming summits, their economic and trade ministers will hold consultations on how to implement the consensus.

East Asian Community complies with the general trend of promoting East Asian cooperation and will undergo a process of gradual accumulation, improvement and exploration. China always holds a positive and open attitude towards East Asian Community and is willing to keep communications and consultations with all parties concerned.