Wen said that China is addressing the financial crisis hand in hand with other East Asian countries. At the Asia-Europe Meeting, the leaders of East Asian countries engaged in an in-depth exchange of views on strengthening regional financial and economic cooperation. At present, we are making joint efforts to promote regional monetary and financial cooperation including the multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative and the Asian Bond Markets Initiative. China is working on establishing bilateral currency swap mechanisms with other countries and further expanding the swap scale. These measures are conducive to strengthening East Asian countries' determination to overcome the crisis, resolving the difficulties faced by some countries to a certain extent, and bolstering the confidence of international investors in the region.

Wen said that China is working on promoting the development of the real economy in the region and effectively improving the countries' capability to fend off risks. We are utilizing regional cooperation mechanisms such as the East Asian cooperation mechanism and China-Japan-ROK cooperation mechanism to boost the economic and trade cooperation among the countries in the region. We will support and help the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to narrow down its development gap. We will accelerate the construction of infrastructure, strengthen cooperation in agriculture, and promote the establishment of bilateral and multilateral free trade areas in East Asia to inject greater vitality and impetus into the regional economy. We believe that we will be able to prevent the financial crisis from taking a toll on the real economy if we can enhance the countries' capability to achieve economic growth.

Wen stressed that China takes a responsible attitude toward dealing with the grave financial crisis. Together with other East Asian countries, we will actively respond to various risks and challenges to achieve win-win results through cooperation.

(Source: www.fmprc.gov.cn)