China Daily News – China has outlined proposals to deepen regional integration and cultivate new growth drivers, positioning greater trade openness and closer digital cooperation as key to sustaining Asia-Pacific development and countering economic fragmentation.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, who cochaired the 37th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial Meeting on Tuesday via videoconference from Beijing, emphasized the need to build an open Asia-Pacific economy.
The 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Nov 18 and 19. China is hosting APEC for the third time, having previously hosted it in Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. Under this year’s theme “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together”, China, together with other member economies, has held more than 300 meetings and events centered on three priorities: openness, innovation and cooperation.
Wang Yi described the upcoming leaders’ meeting as important for the region’s development. He said the region has remained a source of stability, an engine of growth and a hub of cooperation despite turbulence in the international landscape.
China is ready to work with other APEC economies to make further progress in building an Asia-Pacific community, he said, emphasizing mutual respect, solidarity and closer cooperation.
The foreign minister urged APEC members to uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core, and harness the role of trade arrangements in advancing integration. He emphasized the need for joint efforts to foster an innovation ecosystem and accelerate digital and intelligent transformation, creating new areas of cooperation.
He called for broader cooperation to advance sustainable development by promoting inclusive, green and low-carbon growth and safeguarding energy and food security.
Official figures show that APEC’s 21 member economies accounted for 61.6 percent of global real GDP in 2025, and their combined exports of merchandise goods and commercial services represented 46.1 percent of the global total in 2024.
Warning of mounting risks of fragmentation in industrial and supply chains and sluggish global growth, Wang Wentao said that member economies should advance work toward building the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific and reduce trade and investment barriers.
He underscored the need for closer coordination on macroeconomic policies and trade rules, as well as further discussions and policy coordination on digital and artificial intelligence-related economic and trade rules. Member economies should also explore a trust-based partnership in the digital and AI economies, he said. He added that China will continue to advance its high-standard opening-up, fully accord national treatment to foreign-invested enterprises, and encourage open-source development, cooperation and sharing in new technologies such as AI.
According to a Foreign Ministry news release, participants in the meeting welcomed the progress in cooperation achieved during China’s host year and expressed willingness to work together for a successful leaders’ meeting.
Dun Zhigang, a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said that advancing the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific and strengthening connectivity could help counter economic fragmentation by drawing on the region’s complementary strengths to build more resilient supply chains.
Technological exchanges, policy coordination and capacity building can also help developing economies bridge the digital divide, allowing more economies to benefit from advances in emerging fields such as AI, Dun said.
Yang Zerui, director of the research office at the China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, noted that participation in APEC has helped China improve economic governance through regulatory exchanges and capacity building. He described China’s reform and opening-up and its participation in regional cooperation as mutually reinforcing.
China’s host year presents an opportunity to lend a more concrete direction to APEC’s vision of building an Asia-Pacific community by 2040, Yang said, adding that a clearer road map for trade, connectivity, innovation and development could help translate that vision into practical cooperation.
