Pacific Rim trade ministers will assemble in Sapporo on June 5 and 6 to review their past efforts and future direction toward freer trade and investment, marking the start of a series of APEC ministerial meetings to be chaired by Japan this year, government officials said Wednesday.
They are expected to scrutinize how far the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum's industrialized members have achieved trade and investment liberalization goals, set 16 years ago.
Under the so-called Bogor Goals, named after the Indonesian city where APEC leaders reached the nonbinding agreement in 1994, developed economies are committed to achieving free and open trade and investment by 2010, and developing economies by 2020.