APEC Ministerial Meeting Opens in BruneiThe 12th Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) opened Sunday morning with the central themes on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.The two-day meeting of foreign ministers and ministers responsible for trade from 21 APEC member economies, chaired by Brunei's Industry and Primary Resources Minister Abdul Rahman Taib and Brunei's Acting Foreign Minister Princess Masna, has three broad themes -- building stronger foundations, creating new opportunities and making the APEC Forum matter more to its member economies. The ministers are expected to discuss various macroeconomic issues drawing on the APEC economic outlook, issues related to trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, new economic issues including APEC's work to address the challenges and opportunities of globalization as well as electronic commerce, and efforts to improve APEC's interaction with the community. The ministers will consider reports by APEC senior officials, who met here before the ministerial meeting, on developing cost-effective communications and a public outreach program to convey the benefits of trade liberalization, on the progress of individual action plans (IAPs) by member economies this year, and on revitalizing social safety-net activities. They will also consider several reports including a report by the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) on collective action plans, a report by the Economic Committee on the impact of higher oil prices on APEC economies, a report prepared by the Economic and Technical Cooperation Sub-Committee on economic and technical cooperation, a report on a new initiative to bring a more focused approach to human resources development, a report on implementing ABAC's proposal for an APEC Food System, a report by Korea on shared prosperity and harmony, a report from Japan on APEC's contribution to the WTO and related capacity-building initiatives and surveys, and a report by Australia on the subject "Open Economies Delivering to People-APEC's Decade of Progress" as well as a separate report on implementing last year's framework forintegrating women in APEC and progress on various youth initiatives. Meanwhile, the ministers will also meet members of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), which will hold its fourth annual meeting on November 14 followed by a dialogue with APEC Leaders on November 15. |
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