China, ASEAN provide confidence, dynamics for global recovery: Chinese FM

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Jakarta on Monday that China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have injected valuable confidence and dynamics into global recovery.

Speaking after delivering a speech at the ASEAN secretariat on upholding open regionalism, Wang said China and ASEAN are the world's second and fifth largest economies, respectively, whose aggregate economy has surpassed one-fifth of the world's total, contributing to more than 30 percent of the global economy and making them two important engines for global economic recovery.

To secure global economic recovery, Wang said, the first priority is to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at an early date.

China and ASEAN members have conducted fruitful cooperation in fighting the pandemic and became the first group of countries that successfully brought the pandemic under control, which created necessary conditions for rapid economic recovery and also offered valuable confidence for the rest of the world, Wang said.

Wang noted that to boost global economic recovery, countries should focus on development and cooperation. In a turbulent international landscape, the focused endeavor of China and ASEAN countries to seek development is an important contribution to the global economy.

Global economic recovery should be in line with the trend of globalization, which also calls for the stable operation of the industrial and supply chains, as well as liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment. In the headwinds against globalization, China and ASEAN have been holding fast to their positions, Wang said.

He pointed out that global economic recovery needs a new impetus for growth. To echo the historical trend of the fourth technological revolution, China and ASEAN have deepened cooperation in digital and green economies with rapid progress achieved in e-commerce cooperation, benefiting the two peoples and leading East Asia to become the world's fastest-growing market of digital economy.

China is ready to work with ASEAN to jointly build the high-quality "Belt and Road" and promote high-level cooperation between the two sides, so as to benefit the two peoples and contribute to a rapid and strong recovery of the world economy, Wang concluded.