Ministers and representatives from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) approved here Thursday the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals.

The 18th APEC Joint Ministerial Meeting "highly appreciated and endorsed Vietnam's initiative, the Hanoi Action Plan. The plan is an important milestone of APEC as it materializes the Busan Roadmap," Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem said at a press conference after the two-day meeting concluded on Thursday.

The plan, to be submitted to APEC leaders on Nov. 18-19 for adoption, outlines concrete actions for member economies to take in five major spheres: support for the multilateral trading system, strengthening of Individual Action Plans and Collective Action Plans (CAPs/IAPs), promotion of high-quality regional trading agreements and free trade agreements (RTAs/FTAs), the Busan Business agenda, and economic and technical cooperation.

"Host Vietnam initiated the Hanoi Ation Pan, but it is a product of all APEC member economies. China has contributed to the construction of the plan," Vietnamese Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen, who, along with Khiem, co-chaired the two-day meeting, said at the press conference.

APEC's priorities are to accelerate the Doha Round negotiations(its short-term target), complete the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment in the region in 2010 for developed economies and in 2020 for developing ones (medium-term), and establish the Free Trade Area in the Asia-Pacific (long-term), Tuyen stated.

Delegates to the ministerial meeting recommended APEC leaders to issue a separate statement on the Doha Development Agenda reaffirming APEC resolve in restarting the negotiation process as soon as possible.

They agreed on six model measures for commonly accepted chapters of FTAs, including those on trade in goods, technical barriers to trade and transparency, and other issues such as beefing up the multilateral trading system, trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, anti-corruption and transparency human security, and APEC reform.