06/05/2012
Kazan, Russia - United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk spoke today at the second day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's Ministers Responsible for Trade meetings regarding efforts in APEC to foster innovative growth.
"Innovation is a key driver of economic growth, job creation, and our mutual competitiveness in the Asia-Pacific region," said Ambassador Kirk. "Entire new industries were made possible only by the development and commercialization of new ideas, and now we must build on these efforts to ensure that our business community can be as innovative as possible."
A key U.S. priority in APEC has been to refocus activities on achieving practical outcomes that have an impact on business trading in the region. We are glad to be working with Russia and our other APEC partners to continue this emphasis in 2012.
Deputy United States Trade Representative Michael Punke also spoke on the importance of establishing reliable supply chains.
"APEC’s supply chain agenda is critical to fulfilling the commitment by APEC Leaders to improve supply chain performance by 10 percent by 2015," said Ambassador Punke. "The U.S. is leading an initiative that will take a more holistic approach to addressing chokepoints in supply chains by examining how underlying policies affect supply chains and how economies can make changes through the use of targeted capacity building to improve supply chain performance.
"APEC needs to be forward-thinking in identifying new actions that can be undertaken to meet the APEC-wide 10 percent supply chain improvement goal," Punke said.
