The current Concluding Senior Officials’ Meeting (CSOM) began a plenary session on November 13 with a focus on trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, economic and technical cooperation, human security and other important issues.
The meeting is being chaired by Permanent Deputy Foreign Minister Le Cong Phung who is also chair of Senior Officials Meeting (SOM).
On November 12, they discussed measures to resume Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations for submission to APEC Ministers and leaders.
Delegates welcomed Vietnam’s preparations for the meeting, including contents for discussion, particularly the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap approved at the 13th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in the Republic of Korea (RoK) last year.
The RoK’s SOM leader Kim Joong-keun said: “I hope the RoK and Vietnam can co-operate in implementing the action plan because the action plan is derived from the Busan Roadmap so we have many reasons to cooperate together.”
Russia’s SOM chief delegate Vasily Dobrovolskiy said: “My impression is that everything is going on very smoothly. I do not see any major problems. It’s going to be a success”.
“All discussions are on the right track,” said Chile’s SOM leader German King.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s SOM leader Rupert Holborrow said: “Vietnam has done an extremely good job, in its capacity as chair, especially since it was not a participating member of the WTO until a couple of days ago. But they have managed it extremely well, and in the process, all other APEC economies welcome Vietnam’s admission as the 150th member of the WTO”.
