The Secretary-General of ASEAN, H.E. Le Luong Minh spoke at the APEC 2013 Ministerial Meeting (AMM) where he shared the latest developments in ASEAN on related areas based on the APEC 2013 theme “Resilient Asia-Pacific, Engine of Global Growth” and its sub-themes on attaining Bogor Goals – achieving sustainable growth with equity and promoting connectivity. The AMM was co-chaired by Indonesia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Marty Natalegawa and Minister of Trade, H.E. Gita Wirjawan.
The Secretary-General said that “as ASEAN and APEC are striving for the same objective of economic integration for sustainable development with equity and inclusive economic growth and developing our respective beyond-2015 agendas, we are also sharing many same priorities such as promoting trade facilitation, connectivity, investment, disaster management, food security, SME development and capacity building.”
Besides ASEAN, two other observers to APEC, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) also presented the latest developments in their own economic groupings. Meanwhile, the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) with its APEC 2013 theme “Partnership, Resilience and Bridges to Growth” presented the outcomes of its work and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General, Mr. Roberto Azevedo, presented the latest state of play at the WTO. He sought support from the APEC economies for positive outcomes at the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC9) to be held also in Bali from 3-6 December 2013.
Prior to the AMM, the Concluding Senior Officials’ Meeting was held to finalize the report to the Ministers which was presented at the AMM for their endorsement. The AMM discussed among others the evolving regional economic architecture, roadmap to Bali MC9 and the 2013 sub-themes and noted the various reports presented to the AMM. The Leaders of the APEC Economies will meet on 7 and 8 October, 2013 which will conclude APEC 2013 under the Chairmanship of Indonesia and the handover of the APEC 2014 Chairmanship to China.
Source: http://www.asean.org/news/item/secretary-general-of-asean-shares-progress-in-the-region?category_id=27