China open to Trans-Pacific Partnership

BOAO -- China has an open attitude to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, Chinese Premier

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Li Keqiang told the opening ceremony of the 2014 annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia on Thursday.

"As long as the TPP is conducive to the development of global trade and the fostering of an equitable and open trading environment, China is happy to see its conclusion," Li said in a keynote speech.

Regional economic integration is in the common interests of all Asian countries, and they should work together to promote trade liberalization and facilitation of trade and to upgrade regional and sub-regional cooperation, he said.

According to the premier, China will also work with all other parties involved to accelerate negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and endeavor to reach an agreement on it in 2015.

He said China is committed to upholding the central role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) multilateral trading system in global trade development, "but both the RCEP and TPP should become important supplements to the multilateral trading system and the two mechanisms should go hand in hand and reinforce each other."

The TPP talks were initiated by Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei in 2005, but have become dominated by the United States after it joined the talks in 2008.

The RCEP includes the 10 ASEAN members, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, New Zealand and Australia. Based on Asia's industrial structures, economic models and social traditions, the negotiations over the partnership's formation are the largest trade agreement talks with the most extensive participation in East Asia.

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