朱镕基总理主旨演讲(1)
It gives me great pleasure to attend this First Annual Conference of Boao Forum for Asia. I would like to discuss with you issues concerning Asias regional cooperation and development in the new century.
Distinguished Guests，Dear Friends，Ladies and Gentlemen，
It gives me great pleasure to attend this First Annual Conference of Boao Forum for Asia. I would like to discuss with you issues concerning Asia's regional cooperation and development in the new century.
As the biggest continent on the earth， Asia takes up 60 percent of its population. It has abundant resources， long history and magnificent and exquisite cultures. With its stupendous changes and rise in the last century， Asia wrote a glorious chapter in the annals of its own development and left a brilliant hallmark on the advancement of human society. Looking into the new century， this great continent of many splendid ancient civilizations will surely embrace an even more colorful modern civilization.
In recent years， thanks to the joint efforts of Asian countries，there has been a growing awareness of regional cooperation featuring greater tolerance， equality and gradual progress while a situation of open， healthy and mutually beneficial cooperation is taking shape. APEC is making steady progress. The East Asia regional cooperation has gone ahead with full stream and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is functioning smoothly. Last November， China and the ASEAN members agreed to gradually build a China-ASEAN free trade area in the coming decade， and the various quarters are making contacts for an early launch of negotiations. These developments will provide important channels and mechanisms for wider exchanges and deeper cooperation among Asian countries and regions. However， compared with Europe and North America， Asia's regional cooperation is still rather backward. We have of late heard quite some insightful views on the orientation of regional cooperation in Asia. Now， I would like to make a few observations.
First， we should take economic cooperation as the key focus and develop all-round cooperation in a step-by-step fashion. Economic development is the primary task of Asian countries. Given our real needs and experience， such areas as trade， communications， agriculture， information and energy can be made priority areas of cooperation which will be gradually enlarged to include other areas.
Second， we should build on existing channels of cooperation to steadily broaden the scope of cooperation. As East Asia， South Asia and Central Asia are relatively independent geographically and different in ways of achieving economic development， it would be more advisable just for the sake of convenience and effectiveness to reinforce sub-regional cooperation as the first step and， on the basis， to actively explore the ways of a pan-Asiacooperation.
Third， we should further step up bilateral cooperation to consolidate the basis of regional cooperation. A closer cooperation at bilateral level will facilitate the smooth progressof regional cooperation， while regional cooperation will open evenbroader horizon for bilateral cooperation. The two can very well complement each other.
