KUALA LUMPUR, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi urged East Asian countries here on Thursday to act quickly to strengthen its capacity in response to the current global crisis.
East Asia must set new goals and take massive collective actions, he said in his keynote address at the 6th East Asian Congress which opened here on Thursday.
The ramifications of the global economic crisis were much larger than many economists anticipated and governments in the regions should not be complacent with the passage of time, he said.
East Asia must make a difference, and East Asia's path should be holistic, with decisive measures in the economic, social and political realms, he said.
In the economic realm, Badawi said that East Asia needs to continue strengthening and liberalizing the Chiang Mai swap arrangement and harmonize their policies for regional swap arrangement, bond market development and finance surveillance.
"We should not only increase liquidity but also make it easier to conduct all types of asset transactions. We should also liberalize our service sectors more extensively to enable greater participation, investment, employment and integration," Badawi said.
Badawi also urged East Asia to be more active in the social realm, including increasing the capacity to pass on skills, knowledge and abilities to new or displaced workers in the labor market to weather the current global financial meltdown successfully.
In the political realm, Badawi said that East Asia needs to renew their solidarity they brought up ten years ago when the region faced a financial storm.
The Malaysian prime minister also stressed that the ASEAN Plus Three process must be taken to a higher level and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must be the pivot on which regional cooperation must hinge.
East Asia has learned the correct lessons from the past finance crisis, adopting conservative finance policies and build up foreign reserves, he stressed.
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