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STI to attend eighth APEC ministerial meeting
The Secretary for Trade and Industry, Miss Denise Yue, will represent Hong Kong at the eighth Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to be held in Manila, the Philippines on November 22 and 23, 1996.
"At the coming meeting, Ministers will consider and assess the Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA) drawn up by Senior Officials," said Miss Yue.
"The MAPA will contain APEC members' Individual Action Plans detailing the trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation measures that they will take between 1997 and the target dates set in Bogor to achieve free and open trade and investment in the region", she added.
The MAPA will also include APEC members' collective action plan on trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, and joint activities on economic and technical cooperation. It will be finalised by APEC Senior Officials at their informal meeting in Manila on November 20 and 21. Mr. Alan Lai, Director-General of Trade, is Hong Kong's Senior Official to APEC.
Apart from attending the Ministerial Meeting, Miss Yue will take the opportunity to exchange views with Ministers from other APEC economies on trade and economic issues of concern to Hong Kong.
APEC is an informal forum for high level government-to-government dialogue on trade and economic issues, and at present comprises 18 members. Besides Hong Kong, other members are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and the USA.
At their meeting in Bogor, Indonesia in November 1994, APEC Economic Leaders declared a goal of free and open trade and investment in the region, with industrialised economies achieving this goal by the year 2010 and developing economies by 2020.
A year later, in November 1995, Economic Leaders adopted in Osaka, Japan an Action Agenda which set out a comprehensive blueprint of measures necessary to attain the Bogor goal. The Financial Secretary, Mr Donald Tsang, represents Hong Kong at the Economic Leaders Meeting.
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