APEC CEO Summit 2006 opens

APEC CEO Summit 2006 opened at the National Convention Centre, Ha Noi, on the morning of Nov. 17 under the theme "Towards one community-creating new opportunities for shared developments."

The two-day event draws the participation of more than 1,200 top executives from multinational groups and enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region, including City group, FedEx, Microsoft, Daewoo, HSBC and AIG.

APEC Economic Leaders Meeting Chair Nguyen Minh Triet delivered an opening speech themed "Creating an Asia-Pacific Community: Challenges for APEC" at the event.

He said: "The leaders of APEC member economies will endorse the Ha Noi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals, expedite trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation, create the most favourable settings for business, strengthen technical cooperation, ensure the peoples welfare and business safety, narrow down the development gap, especially the digital gap, and reform APEC cooperation mechanism towards improving operational efficiency."

"Our forum will raise our voice to express the need for the resumption of the Doha Round and to promote the multilateral trading mechanism on a global scale," Triet added.

Chairman of APEC CEO Summit 2006, Dr. Vu Tien Loc, said the Summit presents a timely opportunity for discussion on the nature of the challenges APEC is facing today and the responses necessary to deal with these challenges

After the opening session, the two-day APEC CEO Summit is to have a total of 15 discussion sessions focusing on economic cooperation, investment, business environment, creativity, as well as difficulties and challenges that developing economies are coping with.

Held for the first time in 1996, the CEO Summit has now become an annual event alongside the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting.

The summit has become an important forum for leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers and experts to share experiences and work out solutions to increase economic cooperation among businesses in the region and between the Asia-Pacific region with other areas in the world.

(Source: VNA)