APEC 2021 with Taria Tahana

APEC remains an important part of New Zealand and the region's recovery and we are committed to hosting APEC.

The importance of APEC for New Zealand has only grown, as it is the regional body best placed to take on the economic challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the past, APEC has played an important role in managing crises, like the Asian Financial Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We hope APEC can stand up again and support the region’s recovery.  

We are working closely with the current APEC hosts Malaysia to understand their response as it is important in shaping own host year as APEC chair.  In response to COVID-19 developments, 2020 host Malaysia has postponed upcoming key meetings and is reviewing their delivery for 2020.
 
This pandemic also poses challenges for New Zealand’s hosting.  Even in a best case scenario for 2021, where we are able to resume hosting physical meetings at some point, the policy and leveraging benefits will likely look different.  Within the Māori Success Programme we remain focused on our vision of “Innovative partnerships to deliver a culturally authentic experience, to grow indigenous cooperation and inclusion and to advance indigenous prosperity in the Asia-Pacific”.  Our current attention is focused on working through two scenarios for hosting APEC in 2021:  

1. Scenario 1 –  a mixed delivery model with initial meetings using remote participation and ‘in person’ meetings for the latter part of the host year.
2. Scenario 2 – 2021 Virtual Host year with full remote participation. 

In June, we plan to reconnect with Māori entities who have expressed a strong interest in APEC such as Te Taumata.  At that time, we expect to have more clarity on the hosting and reshaped Māori Success Programme options and to be able to discuss more specifically how we work together.