The third Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM3) has openned in HCM City

The view of the meeting. Photo: Trường Giang

Many delegates participated in the meeting that comes from 21 APEC member economies and representatives from Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI), Economic Committee (EC), Steering Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE), Budget and Management Committee (BMC).

In the opening remarks, Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son affirmed that up to now, more than 200 meetings which held in APEC's working sessions, have achieved positive results and is in progress of all committees, working groups and sub-committees.

By the brightening global growth prospects and the growth of major economies with a stable growth rate at 3.2%. This shows that the Asia Pacific region still has great prospect for a strong global economic block.

However, Deputy Minister Bui Thanh Son emphasized that to maintain that growth prospects, it depends on the choice of policies and actions for implementation of the economies. As suggested in the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC3), the main reasons for the decline in global trade include weak investments, slow trade liberalization and a decline in taking shape in cross-border production chains. Therefore, it is important that we should carefully review APEC's work to implement the most feasible plans.

Also, in the meeting, delegates listened to reports on the results of the implementation of specialized cooperation within the framework of the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) and the Economic Commission (EC). In particular, the reports addressed initiatives related to e-commerce, supporting industries, the structure and development of human resources to promote the implementation of the objectives of free trade facilitation as well as trade security within APEC.

Vietnam also contributed ideas and presented the results of the High-Level Officials' Dialogue on Regional Trade Agreements and Free Trade Agreements in Asia - Pacific.

The SOM3 will review the activities of CTI, EC, SCE and the BMC. Through that, to develop a project based on interdisciplinary work in order to improve the reporting materials of the results. Then proposing potential initiatives to the Ministers and Leaders of the countries in the upcoming meeting.