The summit ended with the APEC heads of state and government adopting a joint declaration and also issuing a special statement relating to the world financial crisis.
The statement says that it will be possible to overcome the current crisis over the next 18 months. Priority measures to stabilise countries’ financial sectors and bolster economic growth have already been taken, but full-scale coordinated efforts to overcome the crisis will continue.
The summit’s participants welcomed the Washington Declaration of the G-20 group of the world’s biggest economies, agreed to refrain from erecting new barriers to investment and free trade, and noted the need to establish more effective standards of corporate governance and risk management.
The APEC Forum was founded in November 1989 as an instrument for peaceful resolution of economic, social, environmental and other problems in the Asia-Pacific region. The forum currently has 21 member states and territories: Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, the United States of America, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Chile, South Korea, and Japan.