We believe history will judge the eighth APEC Economic Leaders Meeting held in Brunei Darussalam Nov. 15-16 an important milestone in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum's mission to create a peaceful, prosperous and open Pacific community. The Brunei meeting saw three "firsts" for APEC.
* The Brunei Leaders Meeting was the first "IT summit" where both developed and developing economies pledged to put in place policies and programs to prosper in the New Economy.
* The Brunei summit was the first formal gathering of APEC leaders since the failure to launch a new round of trade negotiations in Seattle last December. Significantly, leaders took advantage of that opportunity to commit them to support launch of the new round in 2001 and engage in concrete discussions on how to do that.