APEC SOM 2 and related meetings on May 9-21

SOM 2 will comprise 49 meetings, workshops and dialogues of committees and working groups, with the expected attendance of up to 2,000 delegates.

As many as 2,000 domestic and international delegates are expected to register to attend events within the framework of the second APEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 2) and related meetings scheduled to take place in Hanoi and nearby Ninh Binh province from May 9 to 21, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reports.

VNA quoted event organizers as saying that, to date, around 250 local reporters and 200 foreign peers have also signed up to cover the events.

SOM 2 will comprise 49 meetings, workshops and dialogues of committees and working groups of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, covering a range of spheres such as trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, human resources development, education, the network economy, food safety, science, technology and creativity, mining, the automobile industry, and urbanization.

At these events, APEC delegates are expected to continue speeding up the deployment of long-term cooperation programs and plans in key areas and reach consensus on the documents to be submitted to ministers for approval, laying the foundation for preparing the content and documents for the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting and APEC Ministerial Meeting in central Da Nang city in November.

A multilateral dialogue on APEC towards 2020 and the future, a High-Level Policy Dialogue on Human Resources Development in the Digital Age, a Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) meeting, a Senior Finance Officials Meeting (SFOM), and the 23rd Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) Meeting will also be held.

Since its inception in 1989, APEC has proved itself as a leading economic cooperation and connectivity mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on three pillars: trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, and economic-technological cooperation.

APEC now has 21 member economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam, which together account for 39 per cent of the world’s population and contribute 59 per cent of global GDP and 48 per cent of the global trade (as at November 2016).

Vietnam officially joined APEC in November 1998, marking a milestone in the implementation of its foreign policy of openness, multilateralization, and the diversification of relations and international economic integration.

It has made positive contributions to the APEC cooperation process. The country successfully hosted APEC Year 2006, in which the 14th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting endorsed the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals, approved measures to enhance the efficiency of APEC cooperation, and set out long-term prospects towards the formation of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). In 2014, Vietnam also successfully held the 6th APEC Human Resources Development Ministerial Meeting.

Vietnam has recommended and joined in many new initiatives alongside with proposing and carrying out more than 100 projects related to trade, investment, economic-technological cooperation, small and medium-sized enterprises, emergency response, healthcare, food security, and counter-terrorism. It has also assumed important positions within APEC cooperation mechanisms.

by Nguyen Quoc / VET