PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia expects the complete draft of the Post-2020 Vision statement to be finalised during the Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) 3 in August.
Apec 2020 SOM chair Hairil Yahri Yaacob said he would compile all reports, recommendations and inputs gathered during the meetings to ensure a comprehensive and inclusive vision statement.
“As the Bogor Goals expire this year, I will ensure that it has all the important elements for Apec to chart their direction post-2020.
“It will include elements of inclusivity, sustainability, and would also include the three pillars of Apec which are trade and investment liberisation; business facilitation; and economic and technical cooperation,” he told reporters today.
Hairil, who is also International Trade and Industry deputy secretary-general (International Trade), said Malaysia, as host of the 2020 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit, had been tasked as pen holder to prepare the vision statement.
“As the SOM chair, it’s my responsibility to come up with a draft so all senior officials can further deliberate and discuss, with the hope of having a complete and comprehensive draft statement that we can present to ministers and leaders in November.”
On a related matter, Hairil said economies that could not attend SOM1 related meetings due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak would be able to participate remotely via video conference.
He added that he had chaired a video conference meeting on Tuesday with senior officials from China.
“We are allocating some resources to have remote participation from economies that cannot come to Putrajaya.
“We have discussed (Covid-19) in the health working group meeting held a week or two ago, and they all agreed that Covid-19 was a tricky situation.”
Hairil said the working group acknowledged the need to take action as Covid-19 had affected many aspects of the economy.
“We are all very concerned with this outbreak. (But) as far as Apec is concerned, we are accommodating participants from those economies you can’t attend physically, to ensure that we will have meaningful and robust discussions.”