Participants in the meeting of the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment pose for a photo (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The APEC Committee on Trade andInvestment (CTI) commenced meetings on May 13, as part of the second APECSenior Officials’ Meeting (SOM 2) and related meetings in Hanoi.
At the CTI meetings, participants from APECmember economies are scheduled to discuss content of the statements set to beapproved at upcoming meetings, including the Ministers Responsible for TradeMeeting, the APEC Ministerial Meeting, and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
They will also debate APEC’s contributions tothe WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference.
The delegates will give opinions on the schedulefor the making of reports on the member economies’ progress in the realisationof the Bogor Goals, APEC’s post-2020 vision on trade and investment, theworking plan for 2017 on the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreement, and theframework document on the facilitation of cross-border e-commerce.
During three working days, the CTI will alsolook into the connection of supply chains, including the implementation andsupervision of the realisation of the second phase of the Supply ChainFramework Action Plan.
Other issues on the agenda include regionaleconomic integration, trade connectivity and facilitation, and promotion ofreforms in APEC.
In a preliminary report on the second phase ofAPEC’s progress towards the Bogor Goals, the APEC Policy Support Unit said from1994 to 2014, the trading of commodities in the region grew by 7.8 percentannually on average to 18.4 trillion USD in 2014. Notably, intra-APEC tradesurged four times. Trade revenue in the service sector also posted an annualgrowth rate of 7.6 percent.
The region’s average most-favoured nation tarifffell by almost a half, from 11 percent in 1996 to 5.5 percent in 2014. The rateof products benefiting from zero-percent tariff rate in APEC increased from27.3 percent in 1996 to 45.4 percent in 2014.
By the end of 2015, APEC member economiesparticipated in 152 free trade agreements and regional trade agreements, 61 ofthem were inked between the member economies.-VNA
VNA
