Move towards prosperity and harmonious development together.

The 25th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Da Nang, Vietnam from November 10th to 11th.

We highly appreciate that APEC has provided opportunities for its economies to communicate and coordinate their positions on various issues such as economy, society, environment and humanities. Each of our members strives to cooperate on the basis of voluntary consultation, mutual respect and agreement to compromise, and is not influenced by any political situation. The unique APEC partnership spirit is also manifested here.

Russia hopes to see a successful future in the Asia-Pacific region and ensure its sustainable and all-round development. We believe that the important way to accomplish this task is to implement effective economic integration on the basis of the universal rules of the World Trade Organization and on the principle of openness and mutual benefit.

We support the idea of establishing an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area. Here, we see the actual benefits and opportunities in the rapidly developing Asia-Pacific market. In the past five years, the share of APEC economies in Russia’s foreign trade has increased from 23% to 31%, of which the export share has increased from 17% to 24%.

The implementation of large-scale projects to establish the Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area should fully consider the important integrated operation mechanism and experience in Asia-Pacific and Eurasia, including the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia cooperates with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the Eurasian Economic Union. At present, the Eurasian Economic Union is developing rapidly, and we are willing to establish cooperative relations with all interested countries and consortia. Not long ago, the Eurasian Economic Union and China jointly signed the Joint Statement on Substantially Ending the Negotiations on the Economic and Trade Cooperation Agreement between China and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Of course, I would also like to highlight Russia’s idea of establishing a "Greater Eurasian Partnership". We suggest that it should be built on the basis of the docking of Eurasian Economic Union and China’s "Belt and Road Initiative" and be able to accept other participants.

The basic requirement for effective integration is to develop infrastructure in an all-round way. At present, Russia is actively transforming seaports and airports in the Far East, building railways across Asia and Europe, and laying new natural gas and oil pipelines. We are committed to building bilateral or multilateral infrastructure projects that can connect economies and markets together.

We attach great importance to integrating Siberia and the Far East into the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation system, and will take a series of measures to improve the investment attraction of these areas and integrate Russian enterprises into the international production chain.

Developing the Far East is Russia’s main priority in the 21st century. This includes establishing a "growth zone" in the region, developing natural resources on a large scale and supporting advanced high-tech industries; It also includes projects that invest in human capital, education, health and the creation of competitive scientific research centers. It is hoped that our foreign partners, first of all those from APEC economies, will actively participate in the implementation of these projects. Foreign participants attending the Russian Eastern Economic Forum can feel the prospect and practical significance of our plans.

It is equally important to bring SMEs into the process of economic integration within the framework of APEC and support women and young people to start businesses. We believe that it is also of special significance to strengthen humanities cooperation and expand contacts in the field of science education. In the future, we will also create a common educational space in the Asia-Pacific region, and the Far Eastern Federal University may become one of the centers of this space.

Establishing effective cooperation to support innovation is the most important task of our time. To this end, Russia has put forward a series of pragmatic measures, such as unifying digital economy and trade rules, adjusting national technical standards, establishing a high-tech market strategy through consultation, and creating a unified conceptual system for digital space. At the same time, we also introduced to our partners some schemes in the field of providing electronic services to the public. In addition, we also propose to hold consultations on international information security and computer program protection within the framework of APEC.

Preventing and eliminating natural disasters, man-made accidents and various epidemic diseases and infectious diseases are challenges that APEC partners need to meet together. Of course, there is also the issue of food security that we need to face together. We should think together about how to meet the rapidly growing demand for high-quality healthy food in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia leads the world in exporting grain, vegetable oil and fish, and hopes to become the main supplier of green food to neighboring countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

I believe that we can accomplish the development task of ensuring regional stability, balance and harmony and realize the prosperity of the whole region.

(The author is the President of the Russian Federation)

Click to read the English version:

The 25th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Danang: Together Towards Prosperity and Harmonious Development

Click to read the Russian version:

ХХV саммит АТЭС в Дананге: вместе к процветанию и гармоничному развитию