APEC members agree on connectivity blueprint

Chinese PresidentXi Jinpingbriefs the media on the status and achievements of the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting after the event concluded at the Yanqi Lake International Convention Center in the northern suburb of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 11, 2014. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

BEIJING, Nov. 11 -- Members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on Tuesday adopted a blueprint to promote regional connectivity by 2025.

The APEC members set the target to enhance physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity by 2025, said Chinese President Xi Jinping at a press conference on the achievements of the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting.

They agreed to invest in enhancing connectivity in the Asia-Pacific in all dimensions according to the blueprint, Xi said.

The APEC members will focus on raising more funds for infrastructure development and breaking the financing bottleneck, for example, through public-private partnership, Xi said.

There are new initiatives to facilitate cross-border business travels, tourism and educational exchanges so that ordinary people will benefit from connectivity development, Xi said.

The APEC Connectivity Blueprint noted that connectivity is of key importance for governments and business, and APEC as a community, but it acknowledged that challenges still remain on the physical, institutional and people-to-people fronts.

To bring the APEC region closer together, APEC economies pledged to develop and renew quality infrastructure including energy, facilitate marine and air transportation, enhance access to Information and Communications Technology, explore the concept of expanded cross-border energy trade and renew energy in a non-binding manner.

They also agreed to make progress in addressing issues of trade facilitation, structural and regulatory reforms as well as transport and logistics facilitation.

Efforts to promote international interoperability will be encouraged and supply chain performance improved, according to the blueprint.

An APEC Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) Multi-Year Project will help economies to make it "25 percent cheaper, faster, and easier to do business."

In addition, the blueprint also set out to facilitate movement of people across borders and to facilitate the exchange of innovative ideas.

APEC economies will improve business travel mobility and cross-border education cooperation, facilitate tourism, promote cultural exchanges as well as professional and skilled labor mobility,according to the document.

APEC economies' ministers and senior officials will oversee the implementation of the Blueprint on a yearly basis and conduct a mid-term review in 2020.

Connectivity is a key theme of this year's APEC meeting, which prioritizes three topics: advancing regional economic integration, promoting innovative development, economic reform and growth, and strengthening comprehensive development in infrastructure and connectivity.

President Xi Jinping on Saturday said China will contribute 40 billion U.S. dollars to set up a Silk Road Fund at a dialogue meeting on strengthening connectivity and improving cooperation in the country's neighborhood.

The fund will be used to provide investment and financing support to carry out infrastructure, resources, industrial cooperation, financial cooperation and other projects related to connectivity for countries along the "Belt and Road", Xi said, referring to China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives.

According to Xi, the goal of the new Silk Road Fund is to "break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity by building a financing platform."

An Asian Development Bank report estimates that Asia as a whole needs as much as 730 billion U.S. dollars per year in infrastructure investment before 2020.

Xi's announcement about the Silk Road Fund came just weeks after a total of 21 Asian economies inked a Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) last month.