Chairman of APEC Committee of Trade and Investment (CTI) Iman Pambagyo said here on Thursday that the APEC Senior Officers` Meeting have agreed to bring some critical issues related to the DOHA Round talks in Bali.
The issues during the APEC ministerial meeting in Bali will be discussed in a special WTO forum and will cover the interest of both developed and developing countries.
"In the last nine to ten years after the declaration of the Doha Round, we seem to have been stuck and made no progress. In fact, we are getting closer and closer to 2020 when the free trade and free investment are to be implemented," he said.
Therefore, Pambagyo noted APEC countries will make sure that the Doha Round should continue to progress serving wide interest with fairness and along with economic growth.
"The point is that we will start from APEC economic issues related with the Doha Round and give significant impact on it," he said.
According to Pambagyo, APEC will call on the global community to implement trade facilitation as well as fairness for all countries.
He added as the chairman of APEC 2013, Indonesia would also take the issues of connectivity on trade and investment, infrastructure development and agriculture subsidies to the APEC`s WTO forum in December.
"We will take the chance as the chairman of APEC 2013 to accommodate our domestic interest and regional issues," he said.
But Pambagyo added the APEC countries were also expected to issue an acceptable concept of agreement to be taken to the WTO forum in Geneva, Switzerland.
"This is not a stagnant issue. We still have to monitor current developments on the economy, investment and trade after the Geneva meeting," he said.
APEC SOM 2013 was officially closed on Thursday after a two-week meeting since January 25 of 26 committees and sub-committees of APEC. It was attended by 1,300 delegates from 21 APEC countries. (*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
