APEC senior officials coordinate summit agenda

YOKOHAMA, November 8 (Itar-Tass) - Senior officials have completed
final preparatory talks on shaping the region's future vision for
sustainable growth and economic integration in a series of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum gatherings.
Yokohama will host the APEC summit on November 13-14.
The Russian delegation was led by Special Representative of the
Russian Foreign Minister Valery Sorokin.
"We as well as other forum participants supported a new growth
strategy of the APEC that will be adopted for the first time and
incorporates our proposals. Some of the strategy's provisions coincide
with Russia's course for modernization," he said.
"Delegates coordinated the plans for creating a common regional free trade zone realizing the importance of promoting this process," Sorokin said.
"The discussions in Yokohama on all issues of the agenda took place in a calm atmosphere and were very constructive," he said.
Since the beginning of the year delegates had already met three times in Hiroshima, Sapporo and Sendai.
Delegates' proposals, including a new growth strategy, will be
reflected in the final statement of the ministerial meeting on November 10-11.
The APEC includes 21 countries, including Russia, China, the United States, South Korea and Japan. In general, APEC member-states account for more than half of the global GDP and 44 percent of the global trade.
Russia has been taking part in the APEC summits since 1997 and will for the first time host the APEC summit in Vladivostok in 2012.