•  President Sang greets Korean and Philippine counterparts in Vladivostok

The two important sessions were held in Vladivostok, Russia on September 9 as part of the APEC summit to discuss food security, innovative growth and the Asia Pacific and global economic situations.

In his speech, President Sang said that ensuring food security must be closely associated with overall national development targets, economic restructuring, the millennium development goals (MDGs) and efforts to cope with climate change.

Outlining Vietnam’s experience, Mr Sang said agricultural and rural development was the first breakthrough in the renewal (Doi Moi) process and has been effective in helping the country stabilize its macroeconomy, maintain economic growth and ensure social security.

President Sang asked APEC members to promote the ASEAN, ASEAN+3 and South-South cooperation frameworks to support developing countries and help them ensure food security.

Russian President Putin said that never before has food security been such a huge global challenge, and as the region's leading economic cooperation forum, APEC needs to take decisive action.

APEC leaders underscored to need to increase regional cooperation to cope with population growth, child malnutrition and agricultural production suffering from the far-reaching impacts of climate change, urbanization and industrialization.

Since the 2007-2008 food crisis, food prices have remained high and are predicted to fluctuate through 2020.

Nearly one billion people in the world are currently living in poverty and 60 percent are in the Asia-Pacific region.

APEC leaders agreed to continue implementing measures to ensure food security with a focus on investing in agriculture, increasing food output and productivity based on private-public-partnership (PPP) cooperation, as well as new technologies, sustainable management of marine ecosystems and controlling illegal fishing.

They also proposed developing a transparent and stable market for farm products and boosting cooperation to promote food security.

At the session on the global and Asian-Pacific economic situation, leaders shared their evaluations of challenges to economic recovery, growth decline risks, impacts of unstable financial markets and high public debt in Europe.

They agreed to accelerate the implementation of APEC’s 2010 growth and support international efforts, especially the decisions made at the G-20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, aiming to speed up strong, sustainable and balanced growth, create more jobs and ensure social welfare.

President Sang said it is essential to renew theories and models of economic growth to ensure they keep pace with scientific and technological developments, as well as the balance of the international economy.

He asked APEC to continue supporting its member countries in restructuring their economies and renewing their growth models, contribute to improving mechanisms for global economic and financial management and bring into full play the role of the newly emerging and developing economies.