Mahbubur Rahman, president of ICC Bangladesh; Rona Yircali, chairman of ICC World Chambers Federation; Jean Guy Carrier, ICC secretary general; Francois Gabriel Ceyrac, ICC director for national committee; Rashed Maksud Khan, ICCB executive board member, and Ataur Rahman, secretary general, pose with other delegates at the Asia Pacific Chambers Congress at Kunshan in China on Thursday. Photo: ICCB

Asia-Pacific chambers have opposed trade protectionism and pledged to keep up the spirit of free trade advocated by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
The need to create a sound environment for international trade was on agenda at the fourth meeting of the ICC Regional Consultative Group (RCG) for Asia Pacific and task force meetings and first Asia Pacific Chambers Congress, held in China on March 29-30.
The China Chamber of International Commerce and ICC China jointly hosted the meetings, ICCB said in a statement yesterday.
The chambers promised to facilitate the balanced development of trade in own country and region. In times of slow global economic growth, they would advocate expanding domestic demand to push the economic growth. They also vowed to serve as a business platform for companies all over the world.
The ICC WCF chairman, ICC secretary general, chairman/vice chairman and secretaries general from ICC China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand attended the programme.
ICC Bangladesh President Mahbubur Rahman along with Executive Board Member Rashed Maksud Khan was also present.
With the theme of expanding domestic demand and balancing trade by exporting to China, the first Asia Pacific Chambers Congress concluded that the event has attracted representatives from international organisations, chambers, business institutions and companies from both Asia pacific region and other parts of the world.
Rahman moderated a session on the impact of China's import expansion on economies in the Asia pacific region.
The speakers discussed as to how the countries of the Asia pacific region take advantage of the China's import expansion policy.
The business leaders resolved to have a biennial meeting of the Asia Pacific CEO Forum for business development in the region.
The first meeting will be held in New Delhi in 2013 to be followed by the next meeting in Beijing in 2015.