China to host APEC 2014

Asia-Pacific member economies will meet again in Beijing, China, next year, as the sun set on this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Tuesday.

China officially received the APEC chairmanship for 2014 and Beijing, as the host country'€™s capital, is set to embark on infrastructure development to support the significant event.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said APEC leaders'€™ commitment to achieving the Bogor Goals, which was agreed at the APEC summit in Bogor, West Java, in 1994, offered opportunities to all parties.

'€œAfter quite a long discussion, we finally agreed several strategic points. We shared a point of view that all APEC economies should be able to reap equal benefits from the partnerships among APEC economies,'€ said President Yudhoyono, who read out the results of the 21st APEC meeting, which ran from Oct.1 to 8.

The Bogor Goals were one of the main agenda items discussed during the APEC Summit in Bali. During their discussions, the APEC members agreed to achieve free and open trade and investment.

The Director of Beijing's Foreign Affairs Office, Zhao Huimin, said measures to prepare China - the world's second-largest economy - for APEC 2014 had begun.

He guaranteed that the 2014 summit would use international-standard facilities, like the ones Indonesia had used for this year'€™s summit.

Zhao and his colleague, Xia Jinggie, a councilor with the Intenational Economy Department at China's Foreign Affairs Ministry, did not disclose specific details of the budget for APEC 2014.

Hong Kong has also been appointed to host an APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting in September 2014. (ebf)