The 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting concluded on Saturday in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, after helping forge broad consensus among participating economies on economic and trade cooperation, government officials and business executives said.
Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said that representatives from APEC economies, APEC observers, the World Trade Organization and other international organizations held candid, in-depth and constructive discussions and achieved fruitful results.
The two-day meeting concluded with the release of the 2026 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Joint Statement and the approval of the APEC Roadmap for Innovative, Competitive and Resilient Services.
Wang said the meeting reaffirmed support for the long-term vision of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, helped advance discussions on WTO reform, and set out a roadmap for the development of the services sector over the next decade to deepen regional economic integration.
Carlos Kuriyama, director of the Policy Support Unit at the APEC Secretariat in Singapore, said that amid rising protectionism, advancing trade agreements remains of great significance.
