13 May 2016 - APEC Senior Officials are scheduled to meet at the 2nd Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM2), to be held from May 14 to15 in Arequipa, Peru, picking up where they left off in their last meeting held in Lima last January.
SOM2 will be chaired by APEC 2016 SOM Chair Luis Quesada, former Ambassador of Peru to Australia. Senior Officials will meet once again to discuss and advance trade and economic initiatives under the APEC 2016 theme of “Quality Growth and Human Development,” carrying on the momentum of APEC 2015 where Quality Growth was a major deliverable, together with Inclusive Development through Human Capital Development. These inclusive growth priorities and initiatives will be carried on by Viet Nam when it hosts APEC in 2017.
Expected to be high on the agenda of the Senior Officials Meeting is the collective strategic study on issues related to the realization of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), where economies expect to be updated on the progress of the study and discuss its implementation and monitoring mechanism.
As part of its efforts to promote the Services agenda and the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap, the Philippines is assisting the host, Peru, in organizing the Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) on Services. The PPD will focus on enabling factors for services competitiveness, as well as the role of services in promoting connectivity and inclusive growth. Also to be discussed is the impact of technology on services delivery and the implications these issues will have on APEC’s work on Services.
Along the sidelines of SOM2, the Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG) will hold a preparatory meeting for the APEC 2016 Education Ministerial Meeting where Ministers will discuss issues, challenges, and opportunities related to education and economic policy.
The Senior Officials Meeting and other related meetings are expected to bring together delegates from the 21 APEC member economies to discuss a number of initiatives under this year’s key priorities of investing in human capital development; modernization of MSMEs; fostering the regional food system; and advancing the regional economic integration and growth agenda.
The two-day meeting precedes this year’s APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting to be held fromMay 17 to 18, also in Arequipa. END