Spokesman sees many wins from APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting

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The 19th Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) had reaped a bumper harvest, a spokesman from the Chinese delegation said on Monday.

Ma Zhaoxu outlined to reporters what China saw as the meeting's main achievements, which he desribed as practical and balanced and achieved through cooperation and consultation on an equal footing.

Progress had been made in deepening regional economic integration and expanding trade, Ma said.

Leaders at the meeting reached broad consensus on innovation policies and the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises and unanimously pledged to battle trade protectionism.

Headway was also made in promoting green growth.

Green growth was a core element of the APEC Leaders' Growth Strategy and represented the trend of economic and social development, he said.

Leaders agreed to start developing an APEC list of environmental goods in 2012 that would directly and positively contribute to green growth and sustainable development objectives.

They also committed to cut tariff rates on these goods to 5 percent or less by the end of 2015, taking into account individual economies' economic circumstances and without prejudice to their positions in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Ma said a third major achievement was in energy security, which was of great significance to pushing forward a comprehensive recovery and long-term development of the world economy.

At the meetings, Asia-Pacific leaders committed to make cutting the aggregate energy intensity of the region by 45 percent by 2035 as the intention target, which not only demonstrates APEC members' political will to promote green growth and realize sustainable development, but also underlines the differences in member states' economic structures, he said.

Ma said APEC leaders also declared regulatory convergence and cooperation, encouraging all members of the forum to take steps by 2013 to implement good regulatory practices, including ensuring internal coordination of regulatory work, assessing regulatory impacts, and conducting public consultation.

They also agreed to strengthen economic and technical cooperation, expand women's participation in the development of APEC economies, enhance the role of the private sector in APEC, and further cooperate on disaster prevention and relief.

APEC was an important economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, Ma said.

Since it was created more than 20 years ago, APEC had played an important role in promoting regional trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, deepening regional economic integration, strengthening economic and technical cooperation and achieving common development, he said.

During the meetings, the leaders consulted and discussed with each other and finally helped the meetings achieve balanced and practical outcomes which could be accepted by all parties, reflecting the APEC "big family spirit," which was key to the continuous development of APEC cooperation.

Ma said China had always placed great importance on and taken an active part in APEC cooperation in various fields. Chinese presidents had attended all the APEC leaders' informal meetings and China had been the host of many important APEC meetings over recent years.

China had also established more than 10 cooperation mechanisms within the APEC framework, Ma said. It set up the China-APEC Cooperation Fund to offer financial support to APEC economic and technical cooperation and promote economic cooperation and social development in the Asia-Pacific region.

China was willing to work with all APEC members to continuously promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in the Asia-Pacific region and make a constructive contribution to achieving sustainable development in the region and the world, as well as making the region and the world a greener and more inclusive place, Ma said.