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Last November, the Economic Leaders endorsed the Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA) comprising members' Individual Action Plans and Collective Action Plans to achieve free and open trade by 2010/2020 as well as joint activities on economic and technical co-operation.
They also agreed on sustaining the dynamism of the action plans through a continuous process of review and consultations.
Senior Officials will discuss how to implement and improve the plans at the meeting, and will also discuss ways to strengthen economic and technical co-operation among members in a coherent and focused manner, and to increase the involvement and contribution of the private sector towards the APEC process.
The Senior Officials Meeting will be followed by a number of committee/sub- committee meetings including those of the Committee on Trade and Investment, the Economic Committee, the Investment Experts Group, the Sub-committee on Customs Procedures, the Sub-committee on Standards and Conformance, and the Government Procurement Experts Group to be chaired by Hong Kong.
Three Senior Officials Meetings are planned for this year. The second meeting will be held in Quebec City, Quebec in May and the third in St John's, Newfoundland in August. The APEC Ministerial and Economic Leaders Meetings will be held in Vancouver in November.
Member economies of APEC are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, and the United States.
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Customs & Excise celebrates International Customs Day
The Customs and Excise Department hosted a reception today (Friday) to mark the 1997 International Customs Day.
"This is the 10th year Hong Kong has celebrated the International Customs Day since it became a full member of the World Customs Organization (WCO) in 1987," said a spokesman for the Customs and Excise Department.