SUZHOU, China – Li Chenggang, China’s representative for international trade, opened the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Trade Ministers’ Meeting on Friday with a call for regional economies to “send a strong message to the world” to support cooperation.
Li said he was chairing the opening session in place of China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, who had “urgent official business,” according to a CNBC translation of his remarks in Chinese.
The role of trade representative is a full ministerial rank. Li is also China’s vice minister of commerce.
The APEC trade ministers’ meeting, scheduled to end on Saturday, comes about a week after US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing. China agreed to place its first large order of Boeing aircraft in nearly a decade and to buy $17 billion worth of U.S. agricultural products annually through 2028.
“Even if APEC is not a venue for negotiations, it should play a leading role in economic and trade talks,” Li said.
“For a consensus already achieved, [APEC] should accelerate implementation and see results early,” he said.
Ambassador Rick Switzer, deputy United States trade representative, is the head of the U.S. delegation for the meeting.
The United States is one of the twelve founding members of APEC, which was launched in Australia in 1989 as an informal forum for discussions on free trade and economic cooperation. The multilateral trade organization now has 21 members, including China, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei, which joined the forum in 1991.