LIMA, Nov 6 (NNN-ANDINA) — The foreign trade and women ministers of the 21 economies that comprise the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) will hold a joint meeting in the Andean region of Arequipa next year, as part of the 2024 APEC forum, which will be hosted by Peru.
This will be part of the more than 160 meetings that will be held in 2024, the year in which Peru will assume the Presidency of the APEC, and is framed within the priorities promoted by the cooperation forum.
Ambassador Carlos Chavez-Taffur, the chair of the APEC Peru 2024 Presidency Working Group, stated that the ministers of both sectors are expected to issue a joint statement to establish a mandate to empower women in trade.
“We have been working on this goal with both the Ministry of Women and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism. It will be an unprecedented meeting,” he said.
Chavez-Taffur remarked that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeks to empower APEC economic actors, in this case women, as a preliminary step to ensure their inclusion in the formal economy.
An estimated 600 million women work in the Asia-Pacific region, and about 40% of the total work in the informal sector.
Furthermore, according to a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO), three out of every four jobs are informal in Peru.
Arequipa, along with Lima, Cusco, Trujillo, and Ucayali, will be the venues for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum to be chaired by Peru.
The APEC is made up of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam. — NNN-ANDINA
