VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said the importance of building the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) community as the key to economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.

"The main key for APEC is the ability to build a sense of togetherness as a community to ensure the success of achieving APEC's goals," said the Trade Minister through an official statement in Jakarta, Tuesday.

Minister of Trade Agus Suparmanto conveyed that the sense of togetherness between APEC economies as a community will encourage the APEC economy to achieve its goals.

The dream of APEC to realize regional economic integration and strengthen regional connectivity will be more easily realized if APEC can create a sense of togetherness and the Bogor Goals have created a strong foundation for APEC to make this happen, said Trade Minister Agus while attending the APEC Ministerial Meeting or AMM which took place on Monday (16/11) virtually.

Also attending the meeting is the Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi.

This meeting discussed the follow-up to the real work program of the APEC forum in supporting APEC's 2020 priorities, including efforts to deal with the pandemic and promote economic recovery in the Asia Pacific region.

APEC's sense of togetherness as a community emphasizes the importance of directing APEC's focus in reducing the development gap among APEC economies, as well as narrowing the gap, especially in the utilization of the rapidly growing digital economy.

The principle of APEC as a community also plays an important role in efforts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recovery, which currently continues to be APEC's top priority.

"Indonesia continues to support APEC's efforts in overcoming the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by enhancing more facilitative policies on trade and encouraging the importance of collective efforts of all economic members to avoid interfering actions that can exacerbate the impact of the pandemic on trade performance," explained Trade Minister Agus.

Through APEC's track record that has shown its role since 1989, Indonesia remains optimistic that APEC can continue its key agendas through various initiatives and capacity building so that the various challenges ahead in the region can be addressed and resolved together.

"It is hoped that the work program that has been agreed upon by APEC can provide concrete results for strengthening the economy in the region, and show a positive signal for the business climate which has been causing uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Agus.

In addition, the Trade Minister also conveyed that in order to achieve APEC's goals in the future, the APEC forum needs to continue to support the multilateral trade system and the re-functioning of the WTO, promote regional economic integration, and strengthen connectivity in Asia Pacific region.

The Trade Minister also reiterated that APEC's goals need to be based on a sense of togetherness between APEC economies as a community. (Antaranews)