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Confidence vital to weather crisis

(China Daily/Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-25 10:47

Global markets plunge

Global stock markets plunged again on Friday to their lowest in five years and major currency rates gyrated wildly on intense concern about a worldwide recession, corporate damage and fragile emerging markets.

European shares lost more than 8 percent and Japan's Nikkei tumbled almost 10 percent.

US stocks plummeted at the opening bell on Friday as investors dumped stocks on fears that the global economy was in the throes of recession. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 398.08 points, or 4.58 percent, at 8,293.17.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 8.3 percent to 12,618. Markets in India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines were also down sharply as investors bailed from emerging markets to cut their exposure to risky assets and meet redemption needs at home.

"The global financial crisis has been constantly spreading and worsening, creating a severe shock to global economic growth," Premier Wen Jiabao told the meeting.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the summit that European leaders would call on Asian support when leaders meet at a financial summit due to be held in Washington next month.

"Europe would like Asia to support our efforts, and we would like to make sure that on Nov 15 we can face the world together and say that the causes of this unprecedented crisis will never be allowed to happen again," he told the ASEM summit.

"If we manage to make sure this is done, maybe this crisis will go down in history as the day on which we managed to enter the 21st century and start resolving this crisis."

Hu said cooperation and dialogue between Asia and Europe was even more important in such uncertain times.

"We should embrace an open attitude and make full use of our strong economic complementarities to deepen existing cooperation."

This is the largest gathering of leaders under the ASEM since its inception in 1996.

Among the delegates are Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-bak and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

The ASEM has 45 members and represents more than 50 percent of the world's gross domestic product.

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