"Beijing Initiative on APEC Human Capacity Building" FormulatedA document titled "Beijing Initiative on APEC Human Capacity Building" was formulated at the closing session of the APEC High Level Meeting on Human Capacity Building in Beijing Wednesday.The "initiative" is composed of four parts -- Challenges Ahead: Moving from Old to New for Stakeholders, Strategic Options: Working to Reach all People, Innovative Co-operation: Better Policy Approaches, and The Way Forward: Calls to Action. The "initiative" points out that the new economy offers unprecedented opportunities for economic growth, employment and higher living standards. It is also posing new challenges for APEC economies to respond to the management, policy, social and human resource impacts of globalization and networked information technologies, the document says. All APEC member economies will benefit from promoting human capacity building through comprehensive, widespread and flexible partnerships and networks, engaging all sectors of the community, in particular governments, businesses and education and training sectors, the "initiative" says. It calls for adopting a new concept of development to step up human capacity building; continually updating individuals' knowledge and skills as part of a life-long learning society; popularizing information networks; and optimizing the means of studying; and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. The document also calls for further action by the APEC, stressing that APEC economies would benefit from actively broadening the various cooperation channels, exploring new cooperation approaches, and undertaking various kinds of activities in the principle of mutual benefit, complementary endeavor and sharing resources. It says that the meeting recommended that this year's APEC Economic Leaders' Informal Meeting and Ministerial Meetings integrate human capacity building as a central issue and take into consideration the outcome of this meeting. APEC fora should shape the agenda for actions and policies ahead and accelerate human capacity building so as to further facilitate trade and investment liberalization and facilitation and sustainable economic growth for common prosperity in the Asia and Pacific region, the document suggests. The participants also proposed a series of creative suggestions and comments on further actions after this meeting. |
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