The cooperative projects conducted by China should meet the needs of ASEAN members, particularly those with undeveloped economic conditions, said Wang.

He made the remarks at the Joint Press Conference of the Post-Ministerial Conference, which was attended by senior foreign affairs officials of ASEAN as well as its dialogue partners, such as Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, New Zealand and Russia.

The cooperative projects should bring China's advantages into full play and the bilateral cooperation will be mutually beneficial, said Wang.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told his ASEAN counterparts on Thursday that agriculture, human resources development, cooperative development of the Mekong River Basin, information and communications technologies and mutual investment are identified by China as priority sectors for bilateral cooperation.

Referring to the influence of China's WTO accession on ASEAN countries, Rodolfo C. Severino, ASEAN secretary-general, said ASEAN regards the action as "positive.''

"ASEAN supported China's entry into WTO from the beginning. ASEAN must see great benefit from China's entry into WTO,'' said Severino.

He admitted that China's participation in the global economic system will have some competitive challenges to ASEAN countries, but there are opportunities for ASEAN investors to freely enter the Chinese market.

At the press conference, foreign ministers and representatives of each country made brief comments on the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN-10 meeting (ASEAN plus its 10 dialogue countries) and the ASEAN-1 meeting (ASEAN holds meeting with each of its dialogue partners) -- and all hailed the meetings as successful.

Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien of Viet Nam, who chaired the current ASEAN meeting, said participants have focused their discussions on the economic, financial, trade and investment issues in the region and the world.

"Although these issues were touched upon from different perspectives, there is a high consensus on the need for and importance of further promoting the relations with dialogue partners,'' he said.

One of the important issues in the discussions was how to narrow the development gap within ASEAN and between ASEAN and other parts of the world, according to Nguyen.

Russian Foreign Minister I.X. Ivanov said Russia attaches importance to cooperation with ASEAN and hopes the ASEAN Regional Forum could enhance its ability to deal with new challenges.

China believes that the forum should retain its nature as a political and diplomatic forum while still focusing on confidence-building. Principles such as non-interference in each other's internal affairs and consensus-building that has already proved effective should continue, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

The ASEAN group members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.

(China Daily 07/28/2001)