The 10th Meeting of China-Australia Joint Ministerial Economic Commission was held in Beijing Tuesday, in which senior officials of the two countries discussed problems of the Sino-Australian economic and trade relations.

Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai and Australian Minister of Trade Mark Vaile jointly initiated the meeting.

Bo said, China and Australia are strongly compatible in economy, and have great potential for cooperation in various fields. So long as the two sides enhance cooperation and make full use of their advantages, they can realize mutual benefits, he said.

Bo noted that after 20-odd years' economic system reform and opening-up, China has established a market economy system. Since China's access to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese market has been much more open than before. "We hope other WTO members could treat China fairly and equally", he said.

Many countries have made positive remarks on the recognition of China's full market economy status, Bo said, adding that China holds optimistic attitude toward the early settlement of China's market economy status by the two countries.

Vaile spoke highly of the bilateral economic and trade cooperation in recent years. He said the present time is the best time for the development of bilateral economic and trade relations. The Australia-China trade increased by three times in the past 10 years.

Vaile said the great complementarity of the bilateral economy will bring even larger benefit to the economic development of the two countries. He said Australia hopes the two sides will make joint efforts to speed up the feasibility study of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The meeting had a wide range of topics for discussion, including the cooperation in the fields of wool, investment promotion, the construction of trade and investment websites, energy, agricultural products and quarantine, as well as regional and multilateral issues.

The two sides agreed to actively and reliably speed up the process of the FTA feasibility study, and continuously expand the cooperation fields, so as to promote the bilateral economic and trade cooperation up to a new stage.

After the meeting, the two sides also signed an MOU of their cooperation.

Source: Xinhua