During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Senior Officials' Meetings (SOM), seven ministerial statements have been approved so far in Peru by consensus among the
, representing a highly positive outcome for the country, Peru's Alternate Senior Official for APEC, Victor Muñoz, indicated on Thursday.
The Peruvian official stressed that the statements were approved by consensus of the
21 APEC economies, which is
"a complete success," considering that
two years ago, it was not possible to reach consensus on high-level political statements at APEC.
"On a political level, we can say that APEC is proving to be a complete success, as we are managing to achieve these high-level political pronouncements after a 2-year pause during which consensus statements were not possible," Muñoz stated.
"These three new statements (…), adopted by consensus, are added to the other previous statements that we have also managed to adopt by consensus throughout the APEC year; in total, we have seven ministerial statements adopted by consensus," he reiterated.
11 declarations
The pending statements include those on Small Enterprises, Mining, the Joint Statement by Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministers, as well as the Statement by APEC Economic Leaders.
Peru's Alternate Senior Official for APEC said the importance of having a consensus statement lies in the fact that it represents a clear mandate from ministers to the APEC working groups, which base their work on cooperation projects on which member economies are working.
"In this sense, economies will not face any kind of observations or restrictions in their implementation. These instruments, adopted at the political level, are significant as they support the APEC's core agenda, which is essentially based on cooperation projects," he noted.
Muñoz said the diplomatic strategy, led by the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Ministry and coordinated with all sectors, made it possible to isolate the geopolitical discussion or the geopolitical element from the technical discussions that had previously hindered reaching consensus.
Pending meetings
Peru's Alternate Senior Official for APEC also stated that once the SOM3 concludes this weekend, the Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meeting, in Pucallpa, and the APEC High-Level Dialogue on Mining, in Arequipa, will still be pending before the Leaders' Summit in November.
Muñoz said Peru is confident that the APEC Economic Leaders' Summit will see the broadest participation and at the highest level (of representation).
"We have that expectation and hope that the leaders of economies will all be here in November, once again reaffirming the commitment to this regional cooperation space, which has proven to be so useful and so practical for addressing challenges that affect us all, in an efficient, swift, and realistic manner," he concluded.