Denis Opudo
APEC stands for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. The 24th APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting kick-started on 25th May 2018. The event took place in the Papua New Guinea (PNG), the South Pacific nation. One of the main agendas was increasing economic integration and connectivity. All these were to be mainly attained using digital development. Moreover, attendants discussed inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The summit took place a couple of months before the APEC Leaders meeting that will take place in November 2018.
The 2018 trade summit came with special significance. This is due to the increasing tension arising from the implementation of tariff barriers in the US. Rimbink Pato, PNG Foreign Minister and co-chair said during his opening remarks that the meeting took place at the time when there were increasing stalemates against the multilateral trading system from different areas. He added that the summit should convey a strong message to the global community on the APEC’s stand. He said that APEC believed in free, fair, inclusive and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system.
Pato said that the summit should ensure that APEC is the primary driver of global growth. APEC is also the key player in the reduction of poverty, job creation and making sure that everyone is on the move. Being a series of technical working teams that are led by academic gurus is the conference’s unique feature. The teams will get a chance to pitch their ideas to the ministers. The idea will involve ways on how to improve policy in given areas. The areas of improvement are like sustainable fishing, female entrepreneurship initiatives. There is also a call to improve food supply chains and free trade agreements.
Furthermore, the meeting focused on business’s digital communications opportunities. Moreover, ways through which new technologies can help improve trade across the region. It also aimed at bringing good trading relationship amongst the countries across the region.
