Chinese President Declares Support for AFDC in Capacity Building
The 16th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting was held from Nov. 22 to 23, 2008 in Lima, Peru. Chinese President Hu Jintao attended the meeting and delivered a speech, covering issues of regional economic integration, human security, and climate change, among others.
President Hu remarked that the world economic growth is now faced with severe challenges of the current international financial crisis. All the countries should take immediate actions to prevent the crisis from further spreading, to stabilize the financial market, and to contribute to economic growth. The international community should take necessary steps to reform the international financial system on the basis of full consultation of all the stakeholders. While addressing the issue of maintaining the stability of international financial market, President Hu remarked that, "China is willing to maintain a stable international financial market along with the international community. China is also willing to strengthen experience sharing and capacity building in finance along with all the APEC members. We support the Shanghai-based Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center (AFDC) to continue to serve as a platform for capacity building and to organize more training and capacity building activities for the APEC members."
Located in Shanghai National Accounting Institute, Shanghai, AFDC is set up by the Chinese government to contribute to capacity building of developing countries around the region in the fields of finance and development through organizing training workshops, forums and conducting relevant research activities. Its predecessor is APEC Finance and Development Program initiated by the Chinese government under the 2001 APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting framework. In November 2004, at the 12th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting held in Chile, President Hu announced the establishment of AFDC to serve as a platform for cooperation and capacity building among all the APEC members in the finance field.
