PUTRAJAYA: The first round of the Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM1) of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is seeing a range of deliberations on APEC 2020’s “priority areas.”
APEC 2020 SOM chair Hairil Yahri Yaacob said that since the commencement of the SOM1 Related Meetings on Feb 3, representatives from member nations have discussed trade and investment, economic cooperation, business mobility, food security, sustainable development, customs procedures, and health and intellectual property rights.
“Throughout these 17 days, we saw participation from various stakeholders in meetings, workshops, activities and side events that culminated with this Senior Officials’ Meeting today.
“We also saw strong collaboration between the public and private sectors, especially during policy dialogues”, he said in his opening remarks at SOM1 here, today.
Hairil said he is pleased that Malaysia has presented its theme, priority areas and deliverables in all the SOM1 Related Meetings and the background papers related to the deliverables in support of the priority areas.
“One of the key deliverables for Malaysia is the Post-2020 Vision and the SOM Dedicated Session on the Post-2020 Vision and the Multi-stakeholder Dialogue was held to contribute towards the process of development of the vision,” he said.
He added that the SOM1 today and tomorrow will deliberate on the outcomes of these discussions in addition to the agenda that will directly support the realisation of APEC 2020’s priority areas, namely, improving the narrative of trade and investment, inclusive economic participation through digital economy and technology, as well as driving innovative sustainability.
The next APEC senior officials meeting will take place in Kota Kinabalu in April.
APEC 2020 kicked-off in Dec 2019 with the hosting of the Informal SOM in Langkawi, where Malaysia presented its theme of ‘Optimising Human Potential towards a Future of Shared Prosperity’.
Malaysia is expected to host about 16,000 delegates throughout APEC 2020, which runs until the year's end.
This is the second time Malaysia has hosted the forum in 22 years. SOM1, which began earlier this month, kicked off a series of events in five cities nationwide.
It will culminate in the final event involving all 21 leaders from its member economies in November, which will be a platform for them to deliver a consensus declaration on critical issues and launch the new Post-2020 Vision of APEC.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad holds the distinction of being the first world leader who has hosted APEC twice.
APEC is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.