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)
