The 10 already-convened meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), out of the scheduled total of 20 this year, have progressed well and yielded expected results, Wu Hailong, Chinese senior official with the APEC, said Monday.
Wu, who is here to attend the Third Senior Officials' Meeting ( SOM III) of APEC scheduled on August 23, made the remarks at a news briefing Monday afternoon.
The theme of this year's meeting is "Meeting New Challenges in the New Century: Achieving Common Prosperity through Participation and Cooperation." The three major topics are: sharing the benefits of globalization and the new economy, advancing trade and investment, and promoting sustained economic growth.
Focusing on the theme and topics, Wu pointed out, the already- convened meetings have yielded a number of specific results thanks to efforts of all member economies, such as:
-- In May, the APEC High Level Meeting on Human Capacity Building passed the Beijing Initiative, which has defined the cooperative model among the government, business and academic circles.
-- The APEC economies have agreed to work out an action plan on economic and technological cooperation. A working group for e-APEC are working on a blueprint of e-APEC. They also have reached consensus on initiating a new round of talks of the World Trade Organization at an early date.
-- Relevant meetings have passed principles concerning trade and investment facilitation. Consensus has been reached on dialogue on macroeconomic policies, while progress has been made on financial and development programs.
"These have laid solid foundation for the APEC Economic Leaders ' Meeting and ministerial meetings scheduled in Shanghai in October," Wu said.
The upcoming APEC SOM III is the last formal SOM meeting of the year. Senior officials from 21 APEC economies are expected to exchange views on leaders' declarations, results of this year's meetings and proposals from relevant economies.
(Xinhua News Agency 08/21/2001)
