2023 APEC Leaders' San Francisco Declaration (Summary)

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) --

2023 APEC Leaders' San Francisco Declaration (Summary)

– Building a resilient and sustainable future for all

We, the APEC leaders, met on November 16-17, 2023 in San Francisco, California, USA. In 1993, the United States hosted the first APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, and for 30 years, we have been firmly committed to APEC's purpose to make the region a pioneer in global growth.

We must harness technological and economic progress to continue to unleash the enormous potential and dynamism of the region, promote economic growth and address all environmental challenges, including climate change. The commitments in the San Francisco Declaration build on previous APEC hosts to advance the region's priorities for resilience, sustainability, connectivity, innovation, and inclusion to address the most pressing economic challenges. Guided by the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 and the Orte Oroa Action Plan, APEC aims to build an open, vibrant, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040 and achieve common prosperity for all people and future generations.

The APEC Year of the United States builds on the APEC Bangkok Goals for a Biocircular Green Economy, which set out the goal of advancing sustainable and inclusive economic policies while ensuring that they address environmental challenges. We welcome the San Francisco Principles for Inclusive and Sustainable Trade and Investment Policies, as well as the outcomes of the 2023 Ministerial Meetings on Transport, Trade, Disaster Reduction, Food Security, Health, Energy, Women, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Finance, and other professional areas, including the APEC Non-Binding Principles for Cooperative and Just Energy Transition and the Principles for Ensuring Food Security through Sustainable Agricultural Systems. We also welcome the revised Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and its action plan.

We reaffirm our commitment to a free, open, equitable, non-discriminatory, transparent, inclusive and predictable trade and investment environment. We also reaffirm the importance of a rules-based multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organization at its core, to continue to drive rapid growth in the region. We are committed to undertaking the necessary reforms and enhancing the functions of the World Trade Organization, including discussions aimed at restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism by 2024 in which all members can participate. We call on APEC economies to implement the WTO agreements in a timely and effective manner, and reaffirm our commitment to participate constructively in the 13th Ministerial Conference to ensure its success and positive outcomes.

We underscore our commitment to advancing regional economic integration in a market-driven manner, including advancing the FTAAP agenda. To this end, we will strengthen capacity building and technical cooperation to support the participation of SCO economies in the cause of comprehensive and high-quality development in the region.

We will continue to work to create a fair and competitive trade and investment environment. We reaffirm our commitment to keeping markets open and addressing supply chain disruptions, including by advancing secure, competitive, resilient, sustainable and open supply chains for a predictable, competitive and digitally connected Asia-Pacific. We are committed to implementing the APEC Connectivity Blueprint (2015-2025) to strengthen infrastructure connectivity, policy coordination and people-to-people bonds. We will intensify our efforts to promote connectivity at the regional, subregional and remote levels.

The world continues to face profound challenges posed by the impacts of climate change. We recognize that economies need to step up their efforts to accelerate a clean, sustainable, just, affordable, and inclusive energy transition through various pathways, taking into account the latest scientific developments and different national circumstances, to achieve global net-zero/carbon neutrality of greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. In doing so, we strive to usher in a new era of decent jobs, investment, economic growth, and ensuring energy security, resilience, and accessibility in the region. By 2030, we aim to triple the global installed capacity of renewable energy.

We are committed to fully implementing the APEC Roadmap for Food Security 2030 to make our agriculture and food systems more resilient, productive, innovative and sustainable, while recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to promote agricultural sustainability. We reaffirm our commitment to the sustainable management of agricultural, forestry, marine and fishery resources. We reaffirm the importance of agricultural productivity, international trade, food loss reduction and loss reduction to achieve food security, and will redouble our efforts to achieve food security and nutrition.

We remain committed to improving people's quality of life and building a resilient and sustainable future for all. To this end, we will continue to advance and support gender equality, promote economic inclusion, and empower micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, the workforce, women, youth, and including indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and remote and rural communities.

We emphasise the importance of opening up a path for MSMEs and start-ups, including through opportunities to improve their "specialized, refined, and new" capabilities. Support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to expand into regional and global markets, including by integrating into global value chains, promoting the integration and innovation of large and small enterprises, accelerating the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and encouraging the provision of "small, fast, light and accurate" digital products and solutions.

We reaffirm our commitment to economic growth through women's full and equal participation in the economy and leadership, including by improving women's access to finance and assets, markets, skills and capacity-building, voice and representation, and innovation and technology.

We reaffirm our commitment to creating a good, inclusive, open, equitable and non-discriminatory digital ecosystem for businesses and consumers. We welcome the implementation of the APEC Roadmap on the Internet and Digital Economy to create an inclusive digital economy for all. We encourage economies to accelerate the implementation of the roadmap, including in the areas of data privacy, cloud computing, telecommunication networks, promoting interoperability, ICT security, digital trade, e-commerce, emerging technologies, and enabling innovation, application enabling technologies and services. In order to fully unleash the potential of digital technology, equitably share the dividends of digital technology, and reduce risks, we will explore the formulation of coordinated response policies, promote international cooperation in the field of digital technology, and welcome international discussions on digital technology governance. We are committed to bridging the digital divide and strengthening digital infrastructure to ensure that no one is left behind. We will accelerate digital transformation, work together to facilitate the flow of data, and strengthen trust in digital transactions between businesses and consumers.

Recognizing that corruption undermines economic growth and development, we are committed to taking pragmatic action to unite in the fight against cross-border corruption and denying safe havens to corrupt individuals and their illicit assets. We welcome the work that has been done this year in these areas.

Together, we are committed to strengthening APEC's leadership role and upholding its status as an important regional economic cooperation forum. We look forward to Peru, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam hosting APEC in 2024, 2025 and 2027 respectively to support future host efforts.