US offers to host APEC Forum in 2023
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Aug 24 (EFE).- The United States on Tuesday offered to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 2023 as a sign of the importance that President Joe Biden’s administration places on economic relations with the countries of the region.
“I am proud to announce that the United States is offering to host APEC in 2023,” US Vice President Kamala Harris said during a speech in Singapore.
Harris pointed out that the strong economic growth that the US is experiencing should not stop at its borders, but should also benefit its partners in Asia-Pacific.
“Our economy shares so much with Southeast Asia, from supply chains to a steady flow of two-way trade,” she said, noting that US trade relations in Southeast Asia support more than 600,000 American jobs.
On Sunday she began a Southeast Asia tour in Singapore that will later Tuesday take her to Vietnam.
The APEC forum, which this year is organized by New Zealand and will be hosted by Thailand in 2022, represents 60 percent of world GDP and more than half of global trade. It forms a market of about 2.85 billion consumers – 40 percent of the world’s population – and aims to establish a free-trade zone between the 21 member economies.
The economies that make up the APEC, founded in 1989, are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Biden, who has made strategic competition with China a top priority of his foreign policy, considers it necessary to strengthen relations with Asia-Pacific countries to cap the commercial and territorial ambitions of Beijing. EFE
esj/tw
