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DGT to attend APEC Senior Officials Meeting in Davao
The Director-General of Trade, Mr Alan Lai, will depart for Davao, the Philippines, tomorrow (Monday) to attend this year's third senior officials meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to be held between August 21 and 23 to review progress in implementing the Osaka action agenda on free trade and investment.
Mr Lai will lead a Hong Kong delegation comprising officials from the Trade and Industry Branch, the Financial Services Branch, the Industry Department, the Department of Health and the Trade Department.
The Osaka action agenda sets a goal for free trade and investment in the Asia Pacific region by 2010-2020 for industrialised and developing economies respectively.
To implement this agenda, all 18 APEC member economies submitted their draft individual action plans in this year's second senior officials meeting held in Cebu in May.
The third meeting will further review these individual action plans and informal consultations will be conducted in Davao with a view to improving them.
The meeting will also review progress about the preparation for the collective action plans by member economies and will consider ways to strengthen economic and technical co-operation among them.
The third senior officials meeting will be preceded by a series of meetings including those of the Expert Group on Mutual Recognition Arrangements on food products, the Sub-committee on Standards and Conformance, the Economic Committee, and the Committee on Trade and Investment. These various APEC forums will report to the senior officials meeting.
APEC will hold the fourth senior officials meeting in October before this year's ministerial meeting and economic leaders meeting 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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