President Truong Tan Sang will join economic leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum at their 21st meeting in Bali, Indonesia on October 6-8, looking to boost regional cooperation to serve Vietnam’s economic restructuring and shifts towards new growth models.

The President’s attendance at the meeting, which is at the invitation of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will also seek to ensure Vietnam’s interests in economic linkage and connectivity, water resources management, marine cooperation, food security and natural disaster prevention and response.

Besides, President Sang and his entourage will conduct activities to deploy the strategic partnership with Indonesia and enhance bilateral cooperation with key APEC members.

Since Vietnam joined APEC 15 years ago, it has proactively promoted regional cooperation across diverse spheres. The country successfully hosted the 14 th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the 18 th APEC Foreign and Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Hanoi in November 2006 as well as nearly 100 APEC conferences that same year with important outcomes.

The nation held the post of Vice Chair of the forum’s medical working group for the 2009-2010 tenure and is now co-Chair of the APEC working group on coping with natural disasters.

This year, Vietnam has elevated bilateral ties with many key APEC members. Notably, the country has established strategic partnerships with Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand; deepened its comprehensive strategic partnership with China and Russia; and entered into a comprehensive partnership with the US.

At the same time, with its participation in negotiations on six free trade agreements with the world’s leading economies at the same time, Vietnam has become one of the active members in promoting regional economic linkage.

With the theme “ Resilient Asia-Pacific: engine of global growth,” this year’s APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will focus on the current global economic situation and APEC’s role in promoting the multilateral trade system, its vision in the evolving regional and global architectures, and sustainable growth in combination with equity, food security, water resources and energy.

The meeting takes place at a time when the world is witnessing political and economic uncertainties, with unstable economic recovery and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s Doha talks of multilateral trade negotiations grinding to a stalemate. However, key members are working to reach an agreement at the ninth WTO ministerial conference in Bali this December.

Asia-Pacific continues to lead economic growth and connectivity in the world. Existing economic cooperation mechanisms like ASEAN and APEC have been strengthened while new economic cooperative models are up and running with rich content and strong commitments, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Set up in 1989, APEC seeks to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It has so far become the largest economic and trade cooperation mechanism in the region with 21 member economies, making up 59 percent of the world population and 57 percent of global trade.-VNA