Japan formally took up the chairmanship of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum for 2010 on Monday as senior officials from the 21 member economies gathered in Hiroshima to discuss free trade and investment in the region.
The two days of talks come ahead of a series of APEC ministerial meetings during the year and are centering on preparatory dialogues to lay the groundwork for APEC leaders to issue an annual joint statement at their summit in November in Yokohama.
The priority issues include making efforts to create a regionwide free-trade zone and develop a strategy for the economic growth of APEC as a whole, while the forum, established in 1989, will assess the extent to which its developed members have achieved the Bogor Goals of trade and investment liberalization set 16 years ago.
On the potential free-trade zone, the senior officials will discuss how to explore possible pathways to an Asia-Pacific free-trade area, building on existing analytical studies.