The related meetings of the first Senior Officials Meeting (SOM I) of the 13th Ministerial Conference of APEC began in Beijing Wednesday.

The meetings, expected to last for six days, are mainly held within the committees and working groups of the organization.

Participants will discuss details concerning cooperation in trade, investment, human resources development, and technologies.

Prior to this, senior officials from the 21 member economies held a two-day meeting, during which they made an overall assessment of the role and future direction of APEC and discussed trade and investment liberalization, economic and technological cooperation and the new economy.

Founded in 1989, APEC stands as the highest level economic cooperation forum of the Asia-Pacific region, covering cooperative fields such as free trade and investment, economic and technical cooperation, dialogue on macro-economic policies.

The organization so far has 21 members -- Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong of China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

(Xinhua 02/14/2001)