After the Foreign Ministry in Beijing announced on Friday that the 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19 next year, the Macau government announced later the same day that according to the central government’s arrangements, the APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting will be held in Macau in June next year.
While attending the 32nd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in South Korea’s Gyeongju, President Xi Jinping announced on November 1 this year that Shenzhen will host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in November 2026.
It will be the third time that China hosts the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a daily briefing on Friday that the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19 next year.
Before the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting was held in Beijing in November 2014, the APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting was held in Macau in September that year.
A statement by the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) on Friday evening quoted Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai as saying that the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) hosting the APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting once again next year since its last edition in 2014 will be of profound significance.
According to the statement, Sam said that the MSAR government expresses its sincere gratitude to the central government for its longstanding trust and support, pledging that his government will, in close alignment with the nation’s strategic planning and arrangements, forge and maintain effective communication and collaboration with the central government’s relevant ministries and commissions.
Under the central government’s strong guidance, Sam said, his government will forge ahead with various preparations for next year’s APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting in a systematic and orderly manner, spare no effort in integrating into and serving the nation’s overall development, and ensure the smooth and successful hosting of the meeting, enabling Macau to make its own contribution to the success of the 2026 APEC, according to the statement.
Moreover, the statement also quoted Secretary for Economy and Finance Anton Tai Kin Ip as saying that backed by the nation’s strong support, the MSAR government will seize the valuable opportunity, brought about by the hosting of the APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting, with the aim of allowing participating APEC member economies to gain a deeper understanding of Macau’s successful implementation of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle and deepening Macau’s pragmatic cooperation with APEC member economies across various fields such as economy, trade and tourism, thereby injecting greater impetus into Macau’s accelerated development into a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure and into the appropriately diversified and high-quality development of Macau’s economy.
Meanwhile, the APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting will be held in Hong Kong in October next year, with the Hong Kong government pointing out in a statement on Friday that it will be the first time that the city will host the APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
The 2014 APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting was initially scheduled to be held in Hong Kong in September that year. However, the central government decided in early 2014 to reschedule the meeting, which was finally held in Beijing in October that year.
This file photo shows the opening ceremony of the 2014 APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting at the Macau East Asian Games Dome in Cotai on September 13, 2014. – Photo: GCS
