The first Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM 1) and related meetings of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC) forum 2020 (APEC 2020) took place in Malaysia’s Putrajaya city from February 20-22.

An overview of APEC SOM 1 (Photo: VNA)

The Vietnamese delegation to the event comprises representatives of the ministries of Industry and Trade, and Foreign Affairs, and the office of the intersectoral steering committee for international integration.

Within the framework of SOM 1, there were many important workshops and policy dialogues, including high-level multi-party ones on APEC’s post-2020 vision.

Host Malaysia has selected the theme of “Optimising Human Potential towards a Future of Shared Prosperity,” for APEC 2020, and outlined three priorities for its Chairmanship, namely improving the narrative of trade and investment, inclusive economic participation through digital economy and technology, and driving innovative sustainability.

The agenda of SOM 1 was based on the three priorities, focusing on such issues as accelerating regional economic integration, reviewing the realisation of Bogor goals and building APEC’s post-2020 vision that will be submitted to the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting scheduled for November.

The delegates looked into preparations for the Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting and the Tourism Ministers Meeting slated for April, and the Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting in August.

They shared the views on APEC’s contributions to the multilateral trade system in the context of the 25th founding anniversary of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the upcoming 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC 12).

The ministers paid special attention to initiatives regarding digital economy and technology.

On the sidelines of SOM 2, Malaysia is scheduled to organise a digital week from April 12-19. Also in April, the Digital Economy Steering Group will convened their first meeting in the year to discuss in detail the implementation of the APEC Internet and Digital Economy Roadmap.

(Source: VNA)