China, Australia pledge to work for fairer, better trade

MANILA - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday pledged to work with Australia to jointly promote fairer and better trade for economic globalization.

"On the basis of adhering to free trade, China is willing to work with Australia to further unleash the dividends of free trade agreements, further expand the scope of opening-up in trade and investment, and jointly promote fairer and better trade for the development of economic globalization," Li said.

The Chinese premier made the remarks during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the sidelines of a series of leaders' meetings on East Asian cooperation in the Philippine capital of Manila.

"Only when you uphold free trade, can you have fair trade," Li said.

Hailing the important role of the annual meeting of the two heads of government and other mechanisms for promoting bilateral ties and cooperation, Li said both China and Australia see each others' development as important opportunities.

He called on both sides to strengthen communication and coordination, and beef up exchanges and cooperation, so as to make regional cooperation a focus of the meetings and send a positive signal of promoting regional peace and development.

For his part, Turnbull said both Australia and China support free trade and thus the two countries should strengthen free trade cooperation and jointly promote the development of global trade.

Australia is glad to see China's efforts in promoting regional peace and development, Turnbull said.

Hailing the strong momentum of bilateral ties and huge potential for cooperation, he said Australia stands ready to strengthen cooperation with China in such areas as economy and trade, e-commerce, and law-enforcement for boosting bilateral ties.