Foreign ministers tackle global challenges at ASEM

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-26 22:32

HANOI -- The 9th Foreign Ministers' Meeting of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) closed in Hanoi on Tuesday, with stronger will from all participating parties to deepen the Asia-Europe partnership within the ASEM framework to tackle global challenges.

The meeting, first official foreign ministerial gathering of 45 ASEM members since its second enlargement, passed a Chair's Statement.

In the context of deepening global financial and economic crisis, the statement rejected protectionism, called for stronger cooperation among countries in the two continents and pinned the hope of economic recovery for next year.

Rejecting protectionism

After two-day discussion, ministers agreed that the ongoing global financial crisis has resulted in sharp reduction in capital flows and negatively affected economic development, particularly that of the developing countries.

However, protectionist measures, increasingly seen as introducing or raising barriers to trade and investment by some countries, may provoke "retaliatory actions" and further harm world economy and delay its recovery, said ministers in the statement.

During a closed session on strengthening cooperation to address global financial and economic crisis, ministers agreed to promote the international efforts towards an open and equitable multilateral system of trade and finance, according to a press release of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry.

Ministers at the meeting also called for enhancing market access for the exports of developing countries and promoting regional and inter-regional integration, said the statement.

Ministers supported international financial institutions to create further lending capacity with more flexible financing policies to effectively assist countries affected by the crisis and prevent capital outflow of developing countries.

Stronger cooperation within ASEM

With the theme of "forging closer Asia-Europe partnership to address the financial and economic crisis and other global challenges," the meeting saw ministers hold several rounds of discussion on boosting trade and investment linkage during the two days.

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