How can the "1+1" economic and trade achievements empower APEC's "Year of China"?
The Suzhou Joint Statement of the 2026 APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting (referred to as the "Suzhou Statement") was released, and the new service industry roadmap was approved... On the 23rd, the 2026 APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting concluded in Suzhou, Jiangsu. All parties have achieved specific results of "1+1", contributing important economic and trade achievements to the APEC Leaders' Informal Meeting held at the end of the year. Commentators from the International Review observed on site that many attendees believed that China's hosting of APEC provided important opportunities for deepening trade and investment cooperation among all parties.
This year marks China's 35th year of joining APEC and its third time hosting APEC. Looking at the global situation, we can better understand why all parties have high expectations for APEC's "Year of China". In today's world, turmoil is intertwined, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and the momentum of global economic growth is weakening. Recently, the International Monetary Fund has lowered its global economic growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1% and its extreme scenario growth rate forecast to 2%. At a critical moment, as the most dynamic region in the global economy, 21 economies in the Asia Pacific region gathered together to deeply explore the direction of multilateral and regional economic and trade cooperation, and reached a "1+1" concrete outcome including a joint statement and a new version of the service industry roadmap, which is of great significance.
Liu Chenyang, Director of the APEC Research Center at Nankai University and Dean of the China APEC Research Institute, analyzed the International Review that these pragmatic achievements are not easily obtained. They not only accurately respond to the pain points of regional development and inject a "booster" into the development of the Asia Pacific economy, but also send a strong signal to the world to defend multilateralism and adhere to mutually beneficial cooperation in the Asia Pacific region, fully proving that open regionalism and true multilateralism are the will of the people.
As an important member of the Asia Pacific family, China has been actively and deeply involved in cooperation in various fields of APEC. This year's APEC "China Year" has identified "openness, innovation, and cooperation" as the three priority areas. During the APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting, He Lifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, proposed in his speech to take the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area as the long-term goal and flexibly and pragmatically promote the process of regional economic integration; Firmly uphold the multilateral trading system and support the reform of the World Trade Organization in keeping up with the times; Strengthen communication and dialogue in emerging fields, innovate cooperation to address new challenges. The outcome of the meeting absorbed China's suggestions and propositions, which not only injected new impetus into APEC economic and trade cooperation, but also demonstrated China's willingness and responsibility to promote Asia Pacific and global economic development with the new achievements of Chinese path to modernization.
During the meeting, Carlos, Director of the APEC Policy Support Group, exchanged views with commentators from the International Sharp Review, stating that all parties are discussing the digital economy and artificial intelligence. Currently, promoting digital, intelligent, and green transformation through innovation has become a new growth point for APEC economies. Some analysts believe that one of the highlights of the Suzhou Declaration issued at this conference is "exploring increment", which not only focuses on supporting traditional agendas such as the multilateral trading system and the World Trade Organization, but also elevates emerging fields such as digital trade, green trade, and artificial intelligence to the same level as traditional economic and trade issues, opening up new space for regional cooperation.
Taking digital trade cooperation, which is of great concern to APEC economies, as an example. Currently, the scale of the global digital economy has exceeded $50 trillion. During the meeting, APEC economies made substantial progress on the APEC Trade Digital Cooperation Framework and committed to carrying out more capacity building, narrowing the digital divide, and ensuring that the dividends of digital transformation are shared by all parties. The Papua New Guinea delegation believes that this has given small and medium-sized economies hope to benefit from digital economic and trade cooperation.
APEC highlights the innovation driven development orientation, which coincides with China's innovation driven development strategy. By 2025, the added value of China's digital economy core industry will account for over 10.5% of GDP, and the scale of the artificial intelligence core industry will exceed 1.2 trillion yuan. These development advantages bring opportunities to APEC member economies. At the extended event of this conference - Suzhou Global Investment Promotion Conference, Zheng Yidou, overseas business representative of SSTECH Co., Ltd. in South Korea, said that the reason why the company chose China for its first overseas factory building is because it highly recognizes China's intelligent production and digital intelligent manufacturing model, and looks forward to deeply connecting with China's innovation ecology.
Let's take another landmark achievement of this conference - the APEC Roadmap for Innovative, Competitive, and Resilient Services. All parties agree to focus on cooperation in eight major areas, promote continuous innovation and reform of policies related to the service industry, and jointly build an open and predictable institutional environment for service trade and investment. Currently, the service industry accounts for about two-thirds of the total APEC economy. The new version of the roadmap outlines the blueprint for the development of the service industry in the Asia Pacific region over the next 10 years, which will further make the service industry an important driving force for APEC economic growth and employment.
As a major player in global trade in services, China has recently been continuously increasing efforts to promote high-quality development of its service industry. Just last month, the Chinese government issued the "Opinions on Promoting Capacity Expansion and Quality Improvement of the Service Industry", proposing that the total scale of the service industry should reach 100 trillion yuan by 2030. The continuous expansion and improvement of "China Services" will broaden the cooperation space among members in the Asia Pacific region.
The higher the wind and waves, the more we need to work together. In the "China Year" of APEC, China will share opportunities and achieve win-win results with various economies in the Asia Pacific region in open development, laying a solid foundation for the APEC Leaders' Informal Meeting to be held in Shenzhen at the end of the year and injecting lasting momentum into the construction of the Asia Pacific Community. It has been proven that China has always been the "cornerstone of certainty" and "harbor of stability" in the Asia Pacific region.