People-to-people connectivity tops the agenda at APEC

APEC

APEC

Senior officials for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organization have wrapped up more than two weeks of talks in Beijing.

The sessions culminated with the final two days of meetings, which covered a broad range of issues, such as trade and investment, agriculture, and anti-corruption Officials also set the agenda for the year’s final APEC leaders meeting, which will take place in November. CCTV America’s Hou Na reports.

China’s senior APEC representative, Tan Jian, said officials at the talks had reviewed current progress, and facilitated future APEC cooperation initiatives, in preparation for November’s APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Beijing.

In-depth discussions were held on three priority areas: advancing regional economic integration, promoting innovative development, economic reform and growth, and strengthening comprehensive connectivity and infrastructure development.

“During these talks, we’ve also expanded consensus on the APEC Blueprint on Connectivity, and discussed the best way of promoting the APEC Public-Private Partnership Framework. We’ve discussed strengthening investment and financial support to the APEC Connectivity and Infrastructure Development program, and how to facilitate soft connectivity and people-to-people connectivity.” — Tan Jian, Senior Chinese Representative to APEC

Beijing is hosting the 2014 APEC meetings. The latest run of talks opened on Aug. 6th, and involved around 100 sessions and 3,000 delegates. They were aimed at improving trade, investment, agriculture, food and anti-corruption initiatives.

The past two days have witnessed the culmination of those discussions and some firm agendas have been set.

Pushing forward economic integration was one of the priorities of the two-day gathering. China has been thinking about ways to make new contributions to deepen the Asia-Pacific economic integration. China is also pushing for more substantial outcomes of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in November.