NUSA DUA (Bali), (PNA/Bernama) — Ministers of the 21-member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have reiterated their commitment towards a seamless regional economy.
They are also committed to integrate, to grow and prosper in ensuring the region remains resilient, as well as, fulfil the role as the engine of the global growth.
The APEC ministers realised the importance of a comprehensive series of structural reforms to increase productivity, labour force participation and high quality job creation in order to help contain key tails risks, improve financial market conditions and sustain economic recovery.
In a joint statement issued on Saturday, foreign and trade ministers agreed to work to achieve stronger and sustainable recovery by, among others, ensuring fiscal sustainability, building human capacity through education and training, boosting domestic sources of growth, increasing domestic savings, providing sources of trade financing and enhancing competitiveness.
The meeting was co-chaired by Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa and Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, with the latter saying that APEC was committed to deepen efforts towards attaining the Bogor Goals, promoting connectivity and achieving sustainable growth with equity.
“We reaffirmed our commitment to attaining the Bogor Goals of free and open trade, and investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2020 and to address the work that remains to be done as identified in 2010,” said the statement adopted at the end of the two-day meeting of Apec trade and foreign ministers.
The ministerial meeting will be followed by the annual APEC summit on Monday and Tuesday.
The trade and foreign ministers also reaffirmed commitment to achieve a Free Trade Area (FTA) of the Asia-Pacific by continuing APEC’s work to provide leadership and intellectual input into the process of regional economic integration.
They believed APEC had an important role to assume in coordinating information sharing, transparency and capacity building, and will hold a policy dialogue on regional trade agreement (RTA) and FTA.
“We agreed to enhance communication among regional RTAs/FTAs, as well as, increase the capacity of APEC economies to engage in substantive negotiations,” the statement added.
It is understood that several Apec member countries, involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), have been holding a series of meetings on the sidelines of the Apec gathering to continue their free trade talks.
The TPP is an FTA initiative involving 11 countries, namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam.