HANOI -- Senior officials from 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) concluded their two-day meeting here Monday
afternoon, paving way for the coming ministerial meeting and economic leaders'
meeting slated for later this week.
During the meeting, the officials
decided to continue to firmly support the Doha round of WTO negotiations and
save the negotiations from the deadlock, endorsed the Hanoi Action Plan which
provides the details required to implement last year's Busan roadmap to achieve
the APEC Bogor goals, and endorsed an APEC reform package, Le Cong Phung, deputy
Vietnamese foreign minister and chair of the Concluding Senior Officials
Meeting, told a press conference after the meeting.
Prior to the current
concluding meeting, the senior officials held three meetings on the
implementation of the programs worked out at the APEC leaders' meeting in Busan,
South Korea, in November 2005, and preparations for the current APEC meetings.
APEC currently has 21 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China,
China's Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South
Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The chairmanship rotates among
its members, with Vietnam holding the chair this year.