First Annual Meeting of Boao Forum Opens

The first annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) opened on Friday in Boao, an eastern coastal town on south China's Hainan Island.

Some 2,000 government officials, scholars and entrepreneurs from 48 countries and regions attended Friday's meeting. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji led a delegation to the meeting and is to deliver a keynote speech at the function.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Republic of Korea Prime Minister Lee Han-dong, and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam, as well as Tung Chee Hwa, chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Edmund Ho Hau Wah, chief executive of Macao Special Administrative Region, also attended the meeting.

Also present at the meeting were former state leaders from the Philippines, Australia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Nepal and Kazakhstan, and high-ranking officials from a group of international organizations, including the United Nations, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and representatives of over 100 multinationals including GE, Toyota Motor Corp., Microsoft, and Samsung.

The annual meeting will focus on such topics as regional cooperation, industrial development and analysis of various e economies.

Discussions will also be held on subjects such as the prospect of liberalizing and facilitating trade and investment within Asian countries and regions, monetary and financial cooperation in Asia, sub-regional cooperation, energy, telecom, manufacturing and the export competitiveness, sustainable development, and the globalization and commercialization of the mass media in Asia.

The Boao Forum for Asia, launched in February 2001, is a non-governmental, non-profit, regular and open international organization established in China. It is aimed to provide a platform for high-level dialogues for Asian countries to review the economic and social challenges they are facing, and to promote economic cooperation in Asia, while opening up further to the other parts of the world.

(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2002)