国际英语新闻：EU, Asia committed to more economic cooperation

"We European countries know that we must pay more attention to our global competitiveness and the productivity of our economies. We must face the challenges of an ageing population from the social perspective as well as the balance of public accounts," concluded Salgado.

Meanwhile President of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, spoke about the highlighted importance of his continent to the global economic recovery, stressing that "approximately 75 percent of global recovery comes from countries like China, India, Vietnam or Indonesia."

"The ADB has elaborated an economic prevision for all ASEM countries except Japan, Australia and New Zealand and the prospects are good: an estimated 7.5 growth this year and next and decreasing inflation, we can say that the recovery in Asia is quite solid," added Kuroda.

Kuroda commented on the need for balance and the importance of stimulating internal demand and added that Asia can learn from the European models of cooperation.

The ASEM meeting was attended by representatives from Australia, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand. And as well as Kuroda, the director of European Affairs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ajai Chopra, and the president of the European Central Bank, Jean- Claude Trichet, were also present.

ASEM has been the main multilateral communication and dialogue channel between Asia and Europe since 1996.