PM Lee Hsien Loong at the APEC Ministerial Meeting Welcome Reception 2009

Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

May I warmly welcome the APEC ministers and delegates who are here to attend the 21st APEC Ministerial Meeting.

Besides the Foreign Ministers, the Trade Ministers, the Finance Deputies and the other distinguished delegates, we also have some special guests with us this evening.

Old friends who were involved in the formation and early development of APEC, for example, Mr Bob Hawke, who was Prime Minister of Australia when Australia convened the first APEC meeting in Canberra, which Minister George Yeo and I were privileged to attend 20 years ago. From his wise and imaginative initiative, APEC has taken root and grown and hence we are here today.

We have special guests who are here for the “High-Level Symposium” to commemorate the 20th anniversary of APEC which took place today and I hear it’s a successful event. I’d like to thank all of you for making this special trip to Singapore.
APEC was formed back in November 1989, amidst concerns of rising protectionist sentiments and a keen awareness of the opportunities of a transformation and a dynamic emergence of the Asia Pacific.

And so the 12 Asia-Pacific economies came together to give free trade and regional integration a push.

We focused on these two areas and our work helped to keep markets open and brought our economies together.

And this without claiming too much credit for ourselves perhaps had something to do with the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round.

APEC has come a long way in the last 20 years. Our scope of cooperation has broadened. We now talk not only about trade liberalisation, also of trade facilitation, human resource development, of pandemics, of security, of many other areas which have also come onto the regional agenda.

Our membership has also expanded, from 12 to now 21 economies, which together roughly account for half of global GDP and global trade.

Our regular interactions have brought economies with diverse political, economic and cultural backgrounds together as one Trans-Pacific community.
This APEC meeting in Singapore is another step forward in this long series, this long gradual progress which cumulatively has transformed the region. It takes place at a pivotal moment when the world economy is emerging from the global financial crisis, when the situation has stabilised, yet the economic outlook remains uncertain, when much still needs to be done to sustain the economic recovery, and also to prepare for the post-crisis landscape.

We hope that APEC economies will commit themselves to cooperate with one another to sustain growth, to eschew protectionism, and to promote regional economic integration. And these are indeed the themes for this meeting. 

So this 20th anniversary is a good time to re-energise APEC and to re-commit ourselves to its work, to ensure that APEC continues to take the lead in trade liberalisation and business facilitation, and continues to be relevant, and to adapt as the APEC community and our region continues to grow and to change.

So I wish you all a very successful meeting, and a very memorable stay in Singapore.

Thank you very much.