• Today, Sunday November 16, starts the Conclusive Meeting of APEC Senior Officials (CSOM) at the National Museum with the attendance of more than 100 delegates from the 21 Member Economies.
The first event of the APEC Peru 2008 Leaders' Week is the Conclusive Senior Officials' Meeting (CSOM), that will collect the results from the three Senior Officials' Meetings and Related Meetings (SOM I, II y III), held in Lima in February and in August, and in Arequipa in May. It will have the attendance of more than 100 delegates of the Asia-Pacific region.
These meetings aimed to draft recommendations for Ministers, as well as to supervise and coordinate APEC Working Plans. Senior Officials attending these events are – at technical level – experts in the integral focus of the relevance and efficiency of the proposed topics. In practice, they lead the path of the APEC Forum based on the guidelines given by the Leaders and Ministers of the Economies.
SOM Meetings, this year, addressed several topics including the economic and regional integration, the need to strengthen the Structure Reform and the support to the multilateral trade and the advances on Doha Round. Likewise, Senior Officials reaffirmed the importance of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), they agreed on reducing times for import processes and on the efficacy of security – at access roads – within the 21 Member Economies, in order to counteract possible terrorism threats.
Among the punctual topics we have: intellectual property, market access, safe and electronic commerce, customs and governmental proceedings, climate change, emergency preparedness, transport infrastructure and business mobility. Furthermore, the fight against corruption, education promotion, SMEs fostering and the reduction of the digital gap are the topics axis Peru proposes as the APEC 2008 Host Economy. In the Conclusive meeting the commitments reached during the three previous SOM meetings will be discussed today Sunday 16 and tomorrow Monday 17. The Senior Officials will meet at the National Museum (from 9.00 am to 12.30pm and from 2.30pm to 6.00 pm, including working sessions, official photograph and lunch). The Plenary Session will be held tomorrow also at the National Museum.
Today’s informal session agenda comprises several topics such as global economic matters, the support to Doha Round negotiations, APEC?s Regional Economic Integration Agenda, Corporate Social Responsibility, APEC Institutional Reform and the preparation for Leaders' Ministerial Meetings.