Peru President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski opened the 2016 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru on Sunday.
He reaffirmed confidence in international trade as a mechanism for achieving positive economic and social change.
Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, said in an interview that Papua New Guinea is hoping to engage more meaningfully with the APEC community and discuss with particular economies’ outcomes of agreements from previous meetings.
The leaders of APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, met in Lima, Peru under the theme, ‘Quality Growth and Human Development’.
Peru’s President Kuczynski, the meeting’s Chairperson, emphasized the role of co-operation between the 21-APEC member economies can play to bolster sluggish trade while opening up opportunities for small businesses and enhancing the productivity of the region’s workforce.
Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, said it was important to engage on the agenda set by the APEC, such as sustainable development.
“For Papua New Guinea, I believe very strongly, that issues such as sustainable development is important to Papua New Guinea where we have to grow the economy, make sure that it is inclusive, and that it is sustainable into the long term.”
He said some of the policy agendas that APEC continues to develop is very relevant to Papua New Guinea and the aim is to take home some of those agenda leading up to PNG’s own APEC Meeting in 2018.
In relation to challenges of the global economy, the Prime Minister said PNG as an emerging economy can learn from how these issues are being dealt with.
“How the international community engages in mitigating some of the challenges that we face in the global economy. Given some of the events taking place in Europe and of course North America, whether those challenges will continue to hamper growth in the global economy moving forward. We think that Papua New Guinea as an emerging economy will be very much dependent on some of these issues that are being now debated in the international community”
In the 2016 Leaders’ Declaration, the APEC leaders called for effective economic, financial and social inclusion of women, elderly, youth and rural communities as well as disadvantaged or vulnerable groups such as Indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities.
