126 Commerce and Industry
protect Hong Kong against any arbitrary and discriminatory actions taken by its trading partners.
The HKSAR participates actively in the current round of multilateral trade negotiations launched at the WTO's Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. Its priority in this round is to seek greater market access for its services sectors and industrial goods. Though the Fifth Ministerial Conference held in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003 ended without consensus on the direction of the negotiations due to members' divergent positions on some key issues, the negotiations entered a new phase at the meeting of the WTO General Council in August 2004 when members adopted a framework for major negotiating areas including agriculture and industrial goods, and agreed to launch negotiations on trade facilitation. The closing date of the negotiations was also extended to an open deadline. Hong Kong's business community will benefit from further liberalisation under the multilateral trade negotiations.
As a further demonstration of its commitment to the WTO, the HKSAR will host the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference on December 13-18, 2005. A Coordination Office has been set up under the Trade and Industry Department to oversee the logistical preparations. Besides enhancing Hong Kong's involvement in all key negotiations, hosting the conference will help raise its international profile, induce considerable economic benefits in the form of tourist receipts, and attract future. overseas tourists, international conferences and other business opportunities.
Regional Economic Cooperation
As an integral part of the Asia-Pacific economy and an important services, financial and trading centre, Hong Kong continued to play an active role in enhancing regional economic cooperation. Its economic links with the region remained strong. In 2004, some 83 per cent of Hong Kong's external trade was conducted with the other 20 member economies of APEC. Hong Kong participates as a full and separate member in APEC and PECC under the name of Hong Kong, China.
APEC is a regional forum for high-level government-to-government dialogue and cooperation on trade and economic issues. In November, the Chief Executive represented the HKSAR at the 12th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting held in Santiago, Chile. The meeting was preceded by the 16th APEC Ministerial Meeting, at which the Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology represented the HKSAR.
APEC pursues its goal of free and open trade and investment by 2010 for industrialised economies and 2020 for developing economies through work in three areas trade and investment liberalisation, trade and investment facilitation, and economic and technical cooperation. Hong Kong participates actively in all three. It has been a Vice-Chair of APEC's Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) since 1996.
Chile, as the APEC Chair for 2004, set the overall theme as 'One Community, Our Future', with seven sub-themes: a commitment to development through trade; sharing benefits through better practices; skills for the coming challenges;