President Truong Tan Sang has attended sessions on food security, economic situation in the world and Asia-Pacific, and regional economic integration at the 20 th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Vladivostok, Russia.

This is the first time food security issue has become the main topic of one session at the APEC forum.

At the session on food security and innovative growth, Russian President Vladimir Putin said food security has become a global challenge and APEC, as the region’s leading economic cooperation forum, must take strong actions.

President Truong Tan Sang emphasised that efforts to ensure food security should be combined with the national development strategy, economic restructuring process, the implementation of Millennium Development Goals and activities to cope with climate change.

Agricultural and rural development is the first breakthrough in Vietnam’s renewal process and remains an effective measure to help the country stabilise its macro-economy, maintain growth and ensure social welfare, said Sang.

He proposed APEC member economies boost cooperation with ASEAN, ASEAN+3, and south-south cooperation so as to practically assist developing nations in ensuring food security.

At a session on economic situation in the world and Asia-Pacific, leaders shared their assessments on challenges to economic recovery, the risk of growth degradation and in-depth impacts of unstable financial market and high public debts in Europe .

On the topic, President Sang suggested APEC pay more attention to assisting its member economies in economic restructuring and renovating growth models and make further contributions to the reform of the global financial and economic management mechanisms in an effective, democratic and equal manner and bringing into play the role of newly-emerged and developing economies.

At another session on regional economic integration, President Sang laid stress on the urgency of the demand for increasing regional economic integration and cooperation, considering it the key to maintaining each member economy’s growth rate and the dynamic of the regional economy.

He suggested APEC prioritise the establishment of reliable supply chains to ensure sustainable sources of energy, fuels and food supply.

APEC should attach importance to sharing experiences in building and implementing policies, facilitating efforts by developing economies to participate in global supply chains, boost cooperation and link with regional and sub-regional connectivity programmes and projects, said the Vietnamese President.

Right after the session, President Sang joined APEC leaders in the dialogue with the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), an annual important event held after meetings.

Businesses highlighted and voiced their strong support to cooperation agreements that governments of APEC member economies are focusing on.

They put forth proposals to speed up the integration of regional financial market, expand service cooperation, infrastructure investment, energy security and sustainable urban development.

APEC leaders welcomed the business community’s proposals, affirmed the prospects for regional economic connectivity and emphasised the essential role of partnership between the governments and business community.

The two-day event officially wrapped up on Sept. 9 with the adoption of the Declaration “Integrate to Grow, Innovate to Prosper” and five documents on innovation growth, energy security, trade liberalisation in environmental goods, education cooperation, fighting corruption and ensuring transparency.

The declaration and the documents affirmed APEC leaders’ strong determination to promote regional economic integration and raise the forum’s international prestige.

The conference highlighted Russia ’s successful organisation of APEC events in 2012 with a number of proposals and initiatives reflecting the country’s increasing role in the region.

It also highly valued Indonesia ’s active preparations to host APEC in 2013 and welcomed the offer of China , the Philippines and Peru to host APEC in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

APEC 20 marks an effective and ebullient cooperation period of the forum. APEC has become increasing strong, affirming its role as a leading economic connectivity and cooperation forum in Asia-Pacific.-VNA