The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Institute holds the 4th CAREC Think Tanks Development Forum in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Tuesday. Photo: Song Lin/GT

Regional organizations and experts have called for the promotion of regional integration and multilateral trade cooperation amid the escalating China-US trade war, noting that trade friction is hurting the world economy and the US should return to multilateralism and global cooperation.

The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Institute, an intergovernmental organization based in Urumqi, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, organized the fourth CAREC Think Tanks Development Forum. The event has the theme of "Trading for Shared Prosperity." It's being held in an ancient city and starting point of the Silk Road, Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The CAREC Institute is jointly governed by 11 member countries in the Central Asia, and along the Silk Road, including China.

The forum brings more than 130 senior representatives of governments, think tanks, academic institutions and research bodies from more than 20 countries and international and regional organizations to discuss regional integration and free trade as a mean of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and study their effects on the regional economy. 

Syed Shakeel Shah, director of the CAREC Institute, told the Global Times that the US-China trade war is bringing challenges to regional economic entities. He said that regional countries, not only CAREC members, should improve cooperation and enhance trade integration.

If economic growth slows in China, other member countries would encounter significant economic downward pressure as well, he said.

Masahiro Kawai, director-general of the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia, said at the forum that the US-China trade war is disrupting regional and global supply chains.

Kawai said that the US should return to multilateralism and global cooperation, the WTO would need to reform, and he encouraged Asian countries to intensify their regional cooperation to cope with the negative impact of the trade war.