APEC 2017 SOM 2 officially opens in Hanoi

PSNews-In the morning of May 17, the APEC 2017 2nd Senior Officials Meeting (SOM 2) officially opened in Hanoi. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son chaired the event.

Delegates of SOM 2
Delegates of SOM 2 

Speaking at the Meeting, Deputy Minister Bui Thanh Son said that the world economy has witnessed various positive developments, rapid recovery and strong growth in recent times. The Asia – Pacific region has kept growing fast.

However, there still remain global challenges and destabilizing factors that require all economies to issue policies facilitating growth and promoting sustainable, innovative and inclusive development.

Deputy Minister Bui Thanh Son stressed that the 2nd APEC SOM is of very importance, marking the halfway progress of the APEC Year 2017 in Vietnam and playing a key role in implementing initiatives materializing the priorities of the APEC 2017 Year. At the same time, it oriented the preparations of themes and documents, which will be submitted to leaders of APEC member economies and ministers responsible for economy of APEC members in November in Da Nang City.

As the second largest conference of APEC 2017, SOM 2 includes 49 meetings, conferences, dialogues and discussions of APEC committees and working groups in various fields: trade liberalization and investment, business facilitation, human resources development, education, network economics, women and economics, food safety, science, technology and innovation, mining, automobile industry and urbanization.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, about 2,000 domestic and international delegates registered to attend conferences in Hanoi, including Ministers in charge of trade and human resources development of various APEC members, senior officials from the 21 member economies, representatives from the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), leading experts of international organizations and leaders of large corporations and research institutes in the region.

By Duy Tien

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