BOAO (China), Nov 2: President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday said economic cooperation was the key to Asia’s development, but observed that tensions in South Asia and instability in Afghanistan adversely affected such endeavours.

“It is an urgent task to enhance comprehensive and integrated development, build complementarity, reinforce Asian values, abate tensions and seek peaceful resolution to political disputes in Asia,” General Musharraf told the first plenary session of Boao Forum for Asia.

The conference was attended among others by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov, Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa and Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho.

President Musharraf asked the participants to strive for building a consensus on win-win for development of Asian countries. He called for focus on poverty eradication, debt relief for poor countries and sharing of technology both for Asia-wide development and a sustainable international economic system.

“Macroeconomic scenario cannot be divorced from political realities in different parts of the world. Of utmost concern is the globalization of terror, unresolved crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Korean Peninsula as well as the longstanding questions of occupation of Palestine and Kashmir,” he stated.

He noted that demonization of Islam and a widening of perceptional gap between Muslim countries and the West had also contributed to regressive economic trends.

Pakistan, Gen Musharraf said, was committed to developing regional growth through organizations like Eco (Economic Cooperation Organization), Saarc, and Organization of Central and West Asian Countries. But, he added, regional tensions were affecting cooperation.

“Tensions in Asia and the instability in Afghanistan have adversely impacted upon the two regional organizations dedicated to economic, technological and cultural cooperation,” he said. “However, the potential of the two organizations is immense,” he said.

He said Pakistan was looking forward to hosting the 12th Saarc summit in January and praised the grouping for its efforts to negotiate preferential tariffs and establish a free trade agreement.

The president said Pakistan was proud of its time-tested friendship with China and expressed the hope that Beijing would play important role for promoting development of Central and South Asia.

Pakistan, he said, was determined to add further economic and commercial content to the excellent relations with China.

CHINESE PREMIER: Inaugurating the conference, Prime Minister Wen urged the participants to step up efforts to promote economic growth and regional security.

“Peace and development remains the main themes of our era,” he said in a speech carried by China Central Television.

However, he cautioned that “impediments” to regional peace continued to exist and urged regional governments to “cultivate a new security concept” while pushing forward inter-dependent regional economic growth.—Agencies