The Director-General of Trade and Industry of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Mr. Joseph Lai, led a Hong Kong, China delegation to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Senior Officials’ Meeting and related meetings held in March in Lima, Peru.

During the Senior Officials’ Meeting, APEC members discussed issues relating to trade facilitation, APEC reform, structural reform, and corporate social responsibility.

Implementation of the second Trade Facilitation Action Plan (TFAP II), endorsed by ministers last year, will be one of the major tasks of APEC in 2008. The action plan aims to achieve a further reduction of trade transaction costs by 5% in the period 2007-2010, focusing on the areas of customs procedures, business mobility, standards and conformance and electronic commerce. Key performance indicators will be developed to monitor progress.

Mr. Lai said, “Hong Kong, China has been playing an active role in the formulation of TFAP II. To make TFAP II a success, it is particularly important to step up capacity building efforts to better equip developing member economies to respond to the changing business environment. As a small token, we have made a contribution of US$500,000 to the APEC Support Fund (ASF) in support of capacity building in developing economies, contributing to the implementation of TFAP II.”

“Our donation reflects the importance we attach to the action plan. It also demonstrates our belief that capacity building is the key for the collective approach adopted for implementing TFAP II to be effective,” he said.

Mr. Lai and the Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, Ambassador Juan Carlos Capunay, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the donation on March 2 in Lima.

APEC has 21 member economies - Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; Philippines; Russia; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; United States and Viet Nam.