APEC Finance Chiefs Concerned about Growing Downside Risks

Beijing, Oct. 22 (Jiji Press)--Finance ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum member economies expressed their concerns over growing downside risks to the global economy in a joint statement adopted at their two-day meeting in Beijing that ended Wednesday. The ministers underscored the need to boost infrastructure investment in a bid to accelerate economic growth in the region. "As the global economy still faces persistent weakness in demand, growth is uneven and remains below the pace necessary to generate needed jobs, and downside risks have risen," the statement said. "The APEC region, as the engine of the world economy, should lead the global recovery toward strong, sustainable and balanced growth," it said. Noting that infrastructure investment "plays an important role" for economic growth, the ministers called for efforts "to attract long-term financing and leverage private resource flows" to fill the large funding gap between projected infrastructure needs and limited financial resources of governments in the APEC region. The ministers recognized that achieving sustainable growth requires both short- and longer-term policies. "We will continue to implement our fiscal policies flexibly taking into account near-term economic conditions, so as to support economic growth and job creation, while ensuring fiscal sustainability," they said. The ministers also reaffirmed their "previous commitments on monetary and exchange rate policies," stressing the importance of avoiding competitive currency devaluations. According to sources in the Japanese Finance Ministry, no discussions took place on a Chinese-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso told the APEC meeting that progress has been made in the implementation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policy mix, known as Abenomics, which comprises three pillars--monetary easing, flexible fiscal spending and a growth strategy. He also said that the Japanese economy remains on a moderate recovery path even after the country's consumption tax rate was raised to 8 pct from 5 pct in April. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Aso said that active discussions were held on infrastructure investment, financial cooperation, and fiscal and tax issues. The next meeting of APEC finance ministers will be held on the island of Cebu, the Philippines, in September 2015. END