The Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) yesterday endorsed an e-APEC strategy for the
development of a digital society in the Asia-Pacific region that
will help create an environment for strengthening market structures
and institutions within the APEC economies.
This was one of several accomplishments to facilitate long-range
goals -- such as narrowing the “digital divide” among member
economies -- achieved by a gathering of senior officials
representing all the APEC 21 member nations, Wang Guangya, SOM
chairman and Chinese vice minister of foreign affairs, told a press
conference last night on the second day of the Oct. 15-21 APEC summit in
Shanghai.
The SOM meeting ended yesterday one day ahead of schedule.
Senior officials also discussed a statement on anti-terrorism that
condemns the terrorist attack of September 11 on the United States
and expresses the willingness of APEC countries to cooperate
against terrorism, Wang said.
Other agreements mentioned by Wang as being approved at the meeting
included the Shanghai Accords with its commitment to the Bogor
Goals through which developed and developing economies aim to
achieve trade and investment liberalization by 2010 and 2020
respectively.
Major achievements of previous APEC meeting also were reviewed,
Wang said, with an emphasis in discussion on responsive strategies
to combat the global economic slowdown and on the encouragement for
new rounds of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.
Founded in 1989, APEC stands as the highest level economic
cooperation forum of the Asia-Pacific region, covering cooperative
fields such as free trade and investment, economic and technical
cooperation, dialogue on macro-economic policies.
The organization’s 21 members include Australia; Brunei; Canada;
Chile; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; the Republic of
Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the
Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; the
United States and Vietnam.
(china.org.cn by Guo Xiaohong 10/16/2001)