KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (NNN-BERNAMA) — The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Second Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM2) and related meetings, which were scheduled to be held in April, have been postponed.
In a statement today, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said the postponement includes the 2020 APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting and the 2020 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) Meeting.
It said that tentatively, the SOM2 and related meetings will be held June 15-26 followed by the MRT Meeting from June 27 to 28.
It added that the dates would be reassessed in May, subject to the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ministry said the decision to postpone was made after extensive consultations with all the relevant stakeholders and having considered the announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the pandemic status of COVID-19, as well as recent domestic developments.
“Malaysia also believes that this decision is a necessary and appropriate one in order to protect the health and safety of all APEC delegates. Malaysia remains fully committed to host APEC in 2020.
“We will continue to work closely with all APEC economies to deliver on this year’s theme, ‘Optimising Human Potential towards a Future of Shared Prosperity’,” said MITI.
It added that Malaysia will also intensify efforts to ensure continuity in the work undertaken by APEC for this year and beyond, particularly in advancing the inter-sessional work on the Post-2020 Vision.
