China-Australia FTA negotiation in full swing: Chinese official

BRISBANE - The negotiation between China and Australia on a free trade agreement (FTA) is moving full steam ahead, China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said here on Saturday.

"China attaches great importance to developing comprehensive economic relationships with Australia. Cooperation between the two nations has played a significant supporting role to the economic development of both," Zhu said at a press conference held on the sidelines of the ongoing Group of Twenty (G20) leaders summit.

He added the two countries, both important economies in Asia- Pacific, are highly complementary in terms of economy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's a state visit to Australia following the G20 leaders summit is expected to lift the two nations' economic cooperation in an all-round way, he said.

"We all are anticipating that during President Xi's state visit, he will witness, together with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the signing of the agreement that is of great significance to the two countries' economic relations," he said.

Talking about the ongoing G20 summit, Zhu held that the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which was wrapped up successfully a few days ago in Beijing, China, has played a guiding role for the G20 meeting in policy terms.

He explained the APEC and G20 summits have common ground in many fields, especially in boosting economic growth, strengthening financial supervision and developing infrastructure.

"Faced with escalating downward pressures on the global economy and given the fragile and unbalanced economic recovery, we hope all the economies worldwide, and the G20 economies in particular, could increase coordination in macro economic policies, strengthen cooperation in financial supervision and boost joint efforts in the reforms of governance structure," Zhu said.

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