Regulate global finance: Wen

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao highlighted the importance of financial supervision in the face of the current international economic crisis here on Saturday.
He said at a press conference of the seventh Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) that financial innovation could help develop the economy, but financial supervision is even more important for the security of the financial system. “Lessons should be learned from the financial crisis, and the responsibilities should be clarified for governments, companies and supervision, respectively,” he said.
He emphasised that the development of the fictitious economy should be balanced with the real economy, so as to prevent the problem of the fictitious economy from affecting the real economy. A normal, balanced and harmonious relation between consumption and saving, or accumulation of wealth, should be maintained in order to ensure economic stability, said Mr. Wen. Cooperation and coordination would give us power to overcome the difficulties, he said, urging Asian and European leaders to attach higher importance to this issue.
The current meeting and the upcoming international financial summit showed the cooperation attitude the leaders held concerning the issue, said Mr. Wen. The heads of 20 developed and emerging countries would gather in Washington on November 15 to review the whole global financial structure. Mr. Wen urged all countries, especially developed countries, to take resolute measures to stabilize financial market as soon as possible, so as to redeem people’s confidence.
“We are glad to see that many countries has made their efforts and achieved some results. But it is not enough as we now see it, and more endeavours are needed,” said Mr. Wen. The most important thing is to stabilise the financial order, to curb and guard against the financial risk, said Mr. Wen, adding that no effort should be spared to prevent the financial crisis from hindering real economic growth. “It demanded that all governments carry out their duty firmly, bravely and responsibly,” he said. As for China, Mr. Wen said to maintain a stable and relatively rapid development of the economy is the biggest contribution the country could make to the world. “The ongoing credit crunch has affected the country’s financial sector, but the direct impact was limited,” he said.
He said this was because China has pushed forward the opening up of its financial sector steadily and the result was that the sector was not fully exposed to the global market. It adjusted its macro-control policies as early as in June to set economic growth as its top priority, and had also adopted measures to expand domestic demand, he said.