Working Group On Trade Promotion Meeting

Excellency Engineer Juan Carlos Hurtado
Minister of Industry, Tourism, Integration and Negotiations of Peru

Excellency Dr. Alfredo Ferrero Vice
Minister of Integration and International Negotiations

Mr. Wyne Wu Chairman/Lead Shepherd of Working Group on Trade Promotion

First of all, allow me to thank our host, the Government of Peru for its hospitality and warm welcome extended to my colleagues and myself. I sincerely appreciate the excellent arrangements and this opportunity to speak and participate in this Meeting of Working Group on Trade Promotions. It is an honor to be here in Lima attending this important meeting.

Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

For those who did not have the opportunity to attend the First Senior Officials Meeting last month, I would like to share with you what Brunei Darussalam intends to do this year, as host of APEC Joint Ministerial and Economic Leaders Meetings.

Brunei Darussalam's theme - delivering to the community - is designed to develop and highlight Brunei Darussalam Priorities; develop and implement APEC's built-in agenda; give coherent and community relevance to the now wide-ranging APEC agenda; and ensure that APEC has substance and relevance in the face of difficulties within the WTO process. The theme was endorsed at the First APEC Senior Officials Meeting.

To be more specific, this year's priorities building upon those Auckland's outcomes include:

This year, under chairmanship of Brunei Darussalam, APEC is keen to make it matters more by delivering to its community through implementation. Thus, APEC fora, such as this Working Group, have an important role to play. The theme, the tasking statements detailing works approved by Leaders/Ministers last year and the decisions of the First Senior Official Meeting have provided the policy directions on what we hope to achieve this year.

On building stronger foundations, various measures to facilitate/help business grow in confidence will be addressed. Individual Action Plans will be improved to make them more useful as business tools. Peer reviews will made more focused and manageable. Various facilitation measures in promoting regional trade and investment and a number of activities to progress work on strengthening markets are these year's major undertakings. The Trade Promotions Working Group's objective is subscribing to this ideal - by contributing to sustained economic development and improved standard of living of the APEC community.

On giving coherence and community relevance to the already wide-ranging APEC agenda, and in the wake of the rapid development of information and communication technology, APEC needs to create new opportunities to take advantage of these developments and the promising potentials of electronic commerce. These issues were in fact discussed at Working Group's 11th Meeting in Canberra and further at the Steering Group Meeting in Rotorua in August last year.

APEC is fully aware there is digital divide in our own community as a result of failure to match our capacity with that rapid development of technology. APEC intends to address this through our economic and technical cooperation. A proposal by the United States on "building the Foundations of the New Economy" fitted well with this year's theme. It was viewed that capacity building would play an essential role in preparing economies to be better able to reap the potential benefits offered by technologies and the increasing importance of knowledge-based economy.

In other fields, various activities involving youth and women are being planned throughout the year. APEC is keen to see that its process benefits regional travelers and some issues being taken up such as APEC food system, biotechnology and tourism are of high value to the community. Some other concrete outcomes are also being worked out as APEC deliverables in November this year.

To ensure that APEC has substance and relevance in the difficulties face by the multilateral trading system, APEC intends to enhance its outreach activities to its own community. APEC will continue to support and contribute to the WTO process. The Trade Ministerial Meeting in June in Darwin and the Leaders Meeting in November in Brunei Darussalam will provide good opportunity to reiterate APEC's political support for the WTO.

APEC would seek to enhance its image and address concern of globalization by publicizing clearly its track record on how it has contributed to trade and investment liberalization and capacity building. As a first step to better communicate APEC's work, Secretariat will be re-developing its website to provide easier access to information for business and for the wider community.

What distinguishes APEC apart from the other regional organizations is the strong business participation. APEC means business. Leaders and Ministers called for further enhancement of dialogue with private sector at all levels and want Senior Officials to look into this year. I note that the interaction between business/private sectors is the strongest aspect of this Working Group.

APEC' intends to further strengthen its business-outreach through publications and new and improved window for business on APEC web site which Australia is spearheading. It is important to note that much works in this area have already been done by this Working Groups especially on APECNet and Trade Information Centre which contain business matching services and posting enquiries.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to following the report of this Working Group. APEC Secretariat has tabled a report on APEC activities and updates for the consideration of the Meeting. Mr. Jose Barojas is in hand to provide the Meeting with substantive support and contribute in whatever capacity available to ensure success of the Meeting.