APEC Leaders’ Meeting 2024 (Session I) (Summary)

The first session of the APEC Leaders’ Meeting (Topic: How to achieve a strong, balanced, secure, sustainable, and inclusive growth and how to address the needs of our most vulnerable populations) was held in Lima, Peru, on November 15, from 10:30 a.m.local time (0:30 a.m. JST on November 16) for approximately 2 hours and a half, chaired by H.E. Dina Boluarte, President of the Republic of Peru. Mr. ISHIBA Shigeru, Prime Minister of Japan attended the meeting. The summary is as follows.

1. Prime Minister Ishiba stated the following three points to which Japan attaches importance to continue to contribute to realize sustainable growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region in accordance with the APEC Putrajaya vision.

(1) Firstly, Prime Minister Ishiba emphasized, for the stability and growth in the Asia-Pacific region, the importance of maintaining and strengthening a rules-based, free, open, fair, and transparent trade and investment environment and transmitted his message to advance further WTO reform including dispute settlement system reform to maintain and strengthen the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core.

(2) Secondly, Prime Minister Ishiba pointed out, in terms of promoting quality infrastructure investment, that development of strong socioeconomic system with high resilience is required while being exposed to the influences of climate change and increasing natural disaster risks. He stressed that Japan, as a nation with extensive experience in disaster management, will contribute to overcoming vulnerability to disasters.

(3) Thirdly, from the viewpoint of promoting women’s economic empowerment and capacity building, Prime Minister Ishiba indicated the significance of participation of women in decision making processes in all public and private organizations to dramatically improve the quality of such processes. He stated that Japan intends to advance gender equality, women’s economic empowerment and capacity building to support further their participation to society through the APEC framework.

2. Lastly, Prime Minister Ishiba announced that Japan is willing to host APEC in 2031 with our past experiences in hosting APEC.

3. Many participating Leaders stated the importance of maintaining and strengthening a free and open trade and investment environment and the multilateral trading system, and the necessity of building resilient supply chain, energy transition and use of digital and AI among others to realize equal and inclusive growth for all people. It was confirmed to promote continued cooperation for the realization of sustainable and inlusive APEC.