Colleagues,

As I was preparing for this meeting and for the bilateral talks that have already begun on the summit’s sidelines, I followed your discussions on television and saw the finesse with which the moderator has been leading the discussion. I want to thank you for this work. The subjects you are discussing are important, interesting, and relevant. Really, it is in order to discuss these issues that we have all come here today.

It has become an almost universal tradition now for summits such as these to bring together not only state leaders, but also the business community, business and industry leaders. This is certainly true of the APEC summits.