China and European Union (EU) delegations met on Wednesday for the Third China-EU Financial Dialogue in Brussels, aiming to ramp up financial exchanges.
At the one-day meeting, the two sides addressed a broad platform of issues, ranging from macro-economic situation and policies, financial sector reforms, to accounting guidelines and governmental purchases.
The two delegations, led respectively by Chinese Vice-Minister of Finance Zhu Zhigang and EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Joaquin Almunia, signed a joint statement after their talks.
The document read that both sides agreed that, although high oil prices have been a hindrance, the world economy had remained robust due to healthy financial market conditions and booming global trade.
On their respective economies, both sides stated their economies were growing faster than expected. The Chinese delegation pointed out its choice of prudent fiscal policies and suitably tight monetary decisions, as a part of the country’s restructuring and move towards sustainable development. China also pledged to gradually improve the yuan exchange rate mechanism.
On the EU side, the document said EU members needed to further improve their budget outlooks, saying that this would prove crucial to the sustainability of public finances.
Regarding financial sector reforms, China and the EU reached a consensus that opening up financial markets would matter a great deal to economic development and could be achieved by lowering financing costs and improving the allocation of resources.
The Chinese side promised to strengthen supervision and risk management and increase transparency while also bolstering legislation to deepen reforms of the financial sectors.
The EU side said it would continue to press for an integrated, open, more competitive and efficient financial services market.
The joint statement also lay out bilateral views on accounting, auditing and government purchases, and their agreement to hold the Fourth China-EU Financial Dialogue in China next year.
The China-EU Financial Dialogue began in February, 2005, thus creating a new channel for the two sides to discuss economic and financial cooperation on a broad scale.
(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2007)
