By Xinhua,
Aomori (Japan) : Top officials from China, India, the US, Japan and South Korea gathered Saturday in this northeastern Japanese city to discuss setting up oil reserves as a way to offset the global hike in fuel prices.
India and China, whose energy demands increased with rapid economic developments, are exploring ways and means to cooperate with the International Energy Agency (IEA) to help in building oil reserves as protection against rising prices, sources told Xinhua on condition of
anonymity.
The IEA, which seeks to include India and China into the global oil market stabilisation framework, will help the two countries build oil stockpiles.
Participation of China and India will strengthen the framework, officials from Japan’s trade ministry said.
The participants are scheduled to issue a joint communiqué at the end of their meeting calling for joint efforts by the five countries to stabilize the world energy market.
The five-party energy meeting, the second of its kind after the Beijing meet in December, 2006, takes place ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) energy ministers meeting and the meeting between G8 energy ministers and their counterparts from China, India and South Korea.
The G8 Energy Ministers Meeting is one of the ministerial meetings in the run up to the G8 summit to be held on July 7-9 in northern Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture.