• With one thousand small and medium entrepreneurs the II APEC Business Advisory Council SME Summit was inaugurated
• New Real Felipe Fortress Convention Center was the venue of this entrepreneurial meeting

Vice Admiral (r), Luis Giampietri, Chair of the High Level Extraordinary Organization Committee, stated that Small and Medium enterprises are the development engine of APEC Economies and of all countries in general. He informed this after the opening of the II APEC Business Advisory Council SME Summit with the attendance of more than one thousand entrepreneurs from the 21 Member Economies.

“It has been an excellent presentation; we have finished the construction on time of the Real Felipe Fortress Convention Center. Also, we have had key lecturers as Jac Ma that has given an optimistic message to small and medium entrepreneurs”, said the CEAN-APEC Chairman after the presentation of the founder of Aliba Group portal of China. This is one of the most successful companies of e-commerce that works with 4.8 million companies in more than 200 countries.

Furthermore, vice admiral Luis Giampietri, highlighted that the essence of the APEC PERU 2008 Forum is the joint work of the public and private sector. As a sample of this, we have all the meetings that are being held during Leaders’ Week with the participation of ABAC.

During the opening ceremony, ABAC Chairman, Juan Francisco Raffo, stated that 95% of the business effort of Asia-Pacific region comes from SMEs and he thanked the Regional Government of Callao and the Vice Admiral Giampietri for making this important interregional meeting possible.

The Minister of Production, Elena Conterno, also attended the meeting to report on the Governmental advances regarding SME promotion, fostering administrative simplification to have access to new markets.

It is worth mentioning the II SME Summit was closed by the President of the Republic, Alan García Pérez, at the Real Felipe Fortress.