CRI听力:Sustainable Growth of Asian Economy in the Changing World

Keeping up growth has been difficult for Asian countries especially during the current tough economic times.

Huang Wei is the acting director of American Economic Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He sums up the major challenges that face Asian economies this year.

"First, the growth of developed economies is still fragile and unstable. Second, the prices of international commodities have been fluctuating in part because of the turbulent situations in the Middle East and North African countries. Third, there have been some new trade disputes. Some developed countries have before them the daunting task of creating new jobs, which has led to more trade conflicts."

But there is one silver lining around the uncertainties. Dr. Pei Jiansuo at the University of International Business and Economics, says economic integration could be one way to keep up economic growth in Asia. He says such integration is actually going strong right now.

"Asian economic integration manifests itself in three aspects-namely, Asia's production network, market interdependence and tourism market interdependence. And among the three, the Asian production network is the basis of the region's economic integration."

Huang Wei further suggests to make use of existing regional blocs to facilitate such cooperation and that the BRICS group sets an example for Asian countries.

"There has been some pragmatic cooperation going on among the BRICS countries. Their cooperation covers a number of sectors, including trade, finance, energy resources and food safety. Such cooperation is a good trend."

For Asian countries, the ASEAN plus X bloc could be one such platform to carry out economic integration.

But with the U.S. trying to set up another bloc, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, Asian countries need to have more discussions to figure out what is the best mechanism for their further integration.

This year's Bo'ao Forum will provide an opportunity for such discussions.

Zhong Wenzhong is Secretary General of the Bo'ao Forum.

"What's the right path for the development of Asian countries, and how can we have healthy and sustainable development? I think those are some of the challenges for Asia. So, I think the Bo'ao Forum will keep pursuing the goal of development for Asia, and we will find more solutions to that end during the forum."

This is why the theme of this year's Forum is "Asia in the changing world: toward sound and sustainable development."

Some two-thousand delegates, including government officials, entrepreneurs and academic experts, are expected to attend the three-day event.

For CRI, I'm Shen Chengcheng.