APEC 2006 Economic Leader’s Meeting Ends in Great Success

The 14th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting successfully concluded in Hanoi this afternoon, November 19, with the issuance of the Hanoi Declaration, containing the leaders’ commitment to "spare no efforts" to revive moribund world trade talks.”

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President Nguyen Minh Triet announces Hanoi Declaration

President Nguyen Minh Triet announced Hanoi Declaration saying that “With a strong commitment to achieving the vision of stability, security and prosperity for the Asia-Pacific region, we agreed to make every effort for realising APEC's goals of free and open trade and investment. We dedicated ourselves to preventing threats to sustainable development, to building a secure and favorable business environment and to enhancing human security. We pledged to continue our work towards a dynamic and harmonious Asia-Pacific community by building strong societies for the well-being of our peoples.”

“We reaffirmed that support for the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) remains a top priority of APEC. The consequences of the failure of the Doha Round would be too grave for our economies and for the global multilateral trading system. We should, therefore, spare no efforts to break the current deadlocks and achieve an ambitious and overall balanced outcome of the Round with the development dimension being at its core. Our will and resolve were stated in the 14th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting Statement on the DDA of the WTO.”

The leaders emphasised total supply chain security as a priority for 2007 and welcomed a study by APEC economies to look at ways to facilitate the recovery of trade in the event of major disruptions to the global supply chain caused by terrorist attack or other calamities.

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Leaders, all wearing a Vietnamese Ao Dai silk tunics, take part in the official
photograph for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC ) summit in Hanoi.

The leaders stressed the need to make APEC more efficient and results-oriented. We commended progress on APEC reform and endorsed the 2006 reform package. We reaffirmed that reform is a high priority and that APEC must continue to evolve to meet new challenges and opportunities in a rapidly changing environment.

On Saturday, the final day of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, the leaders spent much time discussing on the resumption of WTO talks, model measures to be used for regional free trade agreements (RTAs)/Free trade agreements (FTAs) and the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap as well as measures to advance the achievement of the Bogor Goals.

Source: Nhan Dan Newspaper