By Vestnik Kavkaza
The next summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will be held on October 7-8 in Indonesia. APEC is a forum of 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific region, created for cooperation in the field of regional trade and investment facilitation. The aim of APEC is to increase the economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Valery Sorokin, Ambassador-at-large, Russia’s Chief Executive at APEC, stated that “the leaders of the 21 member-economies of the Forum will hold two private meetings in a narrow circle, and a working lunch, they will also meet members of the APEC Business Advisory Council. In the framework of the summit, a traditional APEC business summit will take place, a number of heads of state and government, including the President of the Russian Federation, have been invited to participate in it. All the discussions in Bali will be devoted to the discussion of priority issues marked by the Indonesian presidency.”
Speaking about Russian program for Bali, Sorokin noted: “We, in turn, will not rely solely only on the experience of our chairmanship of APEC, but also on the work done in the format of the G20, which we chaired this year, the outcome of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg.”
The motto of the summit in Bali, as well as of all APEC's activities in the current 2013 year is "A sustainable Asia-Pacific region is the engine of global growth." “This wording proposed by our Indonesian colleagues fully corresponds to the reality. Over the years, the pace of development of the economies of the forum members has been ahead of the world average, and according to experts, this trend will continue in the foreseeable future,” Sorokin thinks.
The discussions at the summit will be built around priority themes. First, the support for the multilateral trading system. “Along with other members of APEC, Russia is very interested in a meaningful conclusion to the Doha round of multilateral negotiations in the framework of WTO in order to ensure an open, non-discriminatory and transparent environment for trade and investment. This is a prerequisite for the sustainable recovery of the world economy,” Sorokin says.
The second priority is associated with the first, has to do with the promotion to the "Bogor Goals." The Bogor Goals inform APEC’s agenda. Sorokin pointed out that “in the APEC Leaders' Declaration, adopted at the summit in Bogor, Indonesia in 1994, a target was set to build by 2020 a system of free and open trade and investment in the APEC region. The most important tool for this task, and hence for the strengthening of the foundations of the multilateral trading system, is the development of a network of free trade agreements (FTAs). Russian is closely monitoring progress in this direction, be it in the format of a comprehensive regional economic partnership, a Transpacific Partnership, or other formats. We believe it is important, and this position is supported at the forum, to ensure maximum transparency of the relevant free trade agreements, their inclusive character. Clearly, FTAs should be based on strict compliance with the WTO principles. As we know, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan as members of the Customs Union are committed to this approach.”
The third priority of the Indonesian presidency is steady growth based on equality. We entirely support the efforts of our partners aimed at creating optimal financial, regulatory and other conditions for the development of businesses, especially small and medium-sized business.
The next priority is the strengthening of regional interconnectivity. This involves the development of integration in three dimensions: institutional, physical and on the level of interpersonal communication. The ultimate goal is to reach the level of a fully linked and integrated Asia-Pacific community.
