DPM Lee Attends APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting in Chile
- Lee announces next year's annual meeting on Jeju Island

Finance and Economy Minister Lee Hun-jai attended the 11th APEC Finance Ministerial Meeting held in Santiago, Chile, recently.
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministerial Meeting included finance ministers from 21 member countries in the Asia-Pacific region and from the United States, Japan, China, and Russia.
Heads of such key international financial organizations as the International Monetary Fund(IMF), World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank joined the finance ministers to take up such matters as continuous economic growth in the region and common prosperity. They dealt with a review of the world economy, economic policies for stable growth and the establishment of a financial environment to allow free movement of capital in the region.
Deputy Prime Minister Lee told the meeting where the APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting will be held next year in Korea, along with its schedules. He said it will take place on Sept.8-9 on Jeju Island in Korea. The deputies meeting will be held on Sept.6-7, while a draft meeting to draw up a joint statement is scheduled to take place Sept.4-5 also on Jeju Island. In the meantime, DPM Lee will meet with Chairman Iglesias of the Inter-American Development Bank and ask him for his help to finalize Korea's application to join the IDB as soon as possible.
APEC(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) was formed in November 1989 in Canberra, Australia, as a forum to expedite continuous economic growth and common prosperity in the region. APEC first held its annual meeting in November 1993 in Seattle in the state of Washington in the United States.
The first APEC Finance Ministers Meeting took place in Hawaii in March, 1994, taking up such key issues as continued economic growth without inflation, investment and financial resources for social overhead capital and expediting the development of the capital market in the region.
APEC worked for the removal of various obstacles to promote a free movement of goods, services and capital in the region and joint policies to cope with challenges from the world economy for common prosperity and security in the region.
In the 1994 summit, the participating heads of state adopted the Bogor declaration and in the following year, the APEC summit held in Osaka, Japan, adopted the Osaka Action Agenda dedicated to a free trade and investment, and expedite business activity, economic cooperation and technology support.
In the second APEC summit that took place in Bogor, Indonesia, the participants declared that advanced countries will liberalize their trade, and investment and developing countries by 2020 for realization of the vision to free trade and investment in the region.
APEC started with 12 member countries in 1989, but the membership expanded to 21 this year. The initial members include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. In 1991, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan became members, followed by Mexico, Papua New Guinea in 1993, Chile in 1994 and Peru, Vietnam and Russia in 1998.
The APEC countries account for around 62 percent of GDP and 50 percent of all trade in the world.
With Taiwan and Hong Kong joining the organization, the names of countries are prohibited to be used and instead a country is being called an economy.
In the meantime, DPM Lee presided over an economic ministerial meeting on Oct. 15 to assess progress being made toward the completion of economic tasks planned for the third quarter.
Economic initiatives planned in the first half are scheduled to be in full swing by the third quarter. The following is a list of major tasks that have been dealt with during this period.
About 3 trillion won of the 4.5 trillion won expanded budget approved by the National Assembly in July 2004 was implemented as planned. Price increases remained in the mid-three percent range as public fees such as charges for mobile phone calls were held in check while the supply of agricultural products stabilized. nw


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