Press Releases

Trade Director to attend APEC Senior Officials Meeting Saturday, August 7, 1999

The Director-General of Trade (designate), Mr Joshua Law, will assume the office of Director-General of Trade on 9 August (Monday). His first duty will be to lead the Hong Kong, China delegation to the Third Senior Officials Meeting (SOM III) of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 1999. The meeting will be held on August 12 and 13 in Rotorua, New Zealand. Mr Law will leave for New Zealand tomorrow (Sunday).

The Hong Kong, China delegation to SOM III and related meetings will comprise officials from the Trade and Industry Bureau, Financial Services Bureau, Home Affairs Bureau, Trade Department, Customs and Excise Department, Department of Health, Immigration Department and Industry Department.

SOM III will be the final formal meeting of APEC Senior Officials this year. At the meeting, Senior Officials will try to finalise APEC's work in various areas this year in preparation for the Economic Leaders' Meeting and Ministerial Meeting to be held next month.

Before SOM III, Senior Officials will gather for a retreat on August 11 for an informal exchange on a number of issues. These include APEC's contribution to the launch of multilateral trade negotiations to be held under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, the review of and possible improvements to the Individual Action Plan process, and preparation for the APEC Ministerial Meeting and Economic Leaders' Meeting.

At SOM III, Senior Officials will review progress of the APEC Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalisation/Accelerated Tariff Liberalisation initiative in the WTO. Other major issues for discussion will include Collective Action Plans for trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, electronic commerce, competition and regulatory reform principles, economic and technical cooperation (Ecotech), social impact of the economic crisis, APEC Food System, Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC, as well as the APEC management reform.

A number of committee/sub-committee will meet before SOM III, also in Rotorua. These include the Committee on Trade and Investment, Economic Committee, SOM Sub-Committee on Ecotech, Sub-Committee on Standards and Conformance, Sub-Committee on Customs Procedures, Investment Experts Group, Informal Experts Group on Mobility of Business People, and Ad Hoc Task Force on the Integration of Women in APEC.

Member economies of APEC are: Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; the People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the Republic of the Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; the United States of America and Viet Nam.