On November 16, 2005, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai attended the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea and elaborated China's position on issues concerned.

On the issue of economic and technical cooperation, Li said that the next 5 to 10 years are a crucial period for APEC to reach the Bogor Goals and APEC must put greater emphasis on effective economic and technical cooperation and capacity building to ensure their potential benefits are distributed as broadly as possible. To that end, the newly established SOM Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (ESC) should effectively fulfill its functions of drawing overall plans, monitoring the implementation and making follow-up assessment, respond to the real needs of the developing members and substantively raise their capacity, take measures to ensure sustained and stable capital input to maintain the momentum of economic and technical cooperation.

Bo noted that APEC should take more actions to advance trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, including simplifying customs procedures and entry-exit procedures to provide facilitation for trade and flow of business people within the Asia and Pacific community, promoting paperless trade, building a convenient and safe electronic commerce environment and more effectively solving the real problems of the business community, especially the small and medium-sized enterprises. China will continue reinforcing cooperation with other APEC members in those areas.

Bo stressed that the Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) and in recent years has established and improved a sophisticated legal framework on IPR protection and taken a series of effective measures. The Chinese government will continue fulfilling faithfully its international obligations and strengthening cooperation with all the other countries in the world and international organizations in this regard.