SINGAPORE, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The world seems to have bottomed out from the worst economic recession in six decades but people remain unsure about the current mild recovery.

    Amid concerns of a double-dip recession, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week started Sunday in Singapore with "sustaining growth, connecting the region" as its theme.

    To live up to that goal, the summit of leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies should serve as a platform where industrialized nations be reminded of their responsibility to help the world economy return to a strong and stable growth.

    In fact, sustainable growth has become a catch-word over the past year as the world slowly recovered from the synchronized recession. The topic was much talked about in the APEC summit in Lima, Peru last year, G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy this July, andG-20 summit in Pittsburgh, the United States this September. But the target can be missed if industrialized economies fail to fix their policy and structure woes at home.

    The crisis originated from the United States where the free-spending habit caused the fundamental imbalance between consumption and saving. The government's failure to contain the sub-prime mortgage crisis in time led to the final outburst of property bubbles and spread the shocks to the entire financial sector and eventually the real economy. Developing economies, especially those in the emerging Asia, were affected by trade links to the United States and the euro zone.

    A year has passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Many economies showed signs of recovery as early as this March. But the faster-than-expected recovery comes with concerns. Though the international financial market is stabilizing, developing nations now worry about the flood of capital that flows into their economies as a result of industrialized nations' loose monetary policies and a weak dollar.

    The depreciation of dollar and market speculation pushed up crude oil prices recently, in the absence of strong market demands. All are indications that financial reforms in the industrialized economies made little progress and market speculation staged a come-back. If things remain unchanged as they were prior to the crisis, a sustainable growth is hard to come by.

    Therefore, industrialized economies should be constantly reminded of their responsibility to the world's economic health. The ability to keep their financial and fiscal houses in order is in every one's interest.

Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis