BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that the 15th East Asia Forum (EAF) will be held in the city of Changsha in China's Hunan Province from June 29 to July 1.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a daily press briefing that the forum will be attended by officials, entrepreneurs and scholars from ASEAN plus China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (10+3), as well as representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat.
The forum will be centered on the 20th anniversary of 10+3 cooperation, and the representatives will discuss the East Asia economic community. Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin will attend the forum.
Geng called the 10+3 platform the main channel for east Asia cooperation. After 20 years, the 10+3 cooperation has withstood two financial crisis and had become one of the most fruitful cooperative platform in Asian region.
Geng said China had always valued 10+3 cooperation, and had actively taken part in meetings within the 10+3 framework.
He said that China hoped to use the 20th anniversary of 10+3 cooperation, to work with all parties to deepen cooperation in areas such as finance, agriculture and poverty reduction, cultivate new growth areas in production capacity, media and tourism, to promote the construction of East Asia economic community.
The 10+3 cooperation mechanism incorporates the ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+1 frameworks.
The first ASEAN Plus Three summit was held in Malaysia in December 1997, a very important time when all countries in the region were facing an economic setback.
