Mr Khiem, who is also Minister of Foreign Affairs, made the remark in a recent interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency.

He said that through meetings and high-level contacts, APEC has become an important channel for Vietnam to boost its ties with other regional economies and that cooperation within the 21-member forum has also helped enhance the nation’s image and position in the region.

“Vietnam’s admission to APEC marked an important milestone during the course of implementation of the Party’s and the State’s foreign policy of openness, multilateralisation, diversification and integration into the world economy,” Mr Khiem said.

According to the Deputy PM, since Vietnam became APEC’s official member in November 1998, the nation has made marked contributions to the forum.

Vietnam has fully and responsibly participated in APEC cooperation programmes and actively joined other member economies in new areas of cooperation, such as human security, health care, education and tourism alongside traditional trade activities, he added.

By sharing experiences and information, particularly with developing member economies, Vietnam has efficiently contributed to a number of areas of cooperation between APEC members, including fisheries, agriculture and the prevention of bird flu and other epidemics, the deputy PM said.

The Southeast Asian nation has also participated in APEC committees for trade, investment and economics as well as its working groups regarding business travel, small- and medium-sized enterprises, health care, fight against terrorism, emergency preparedness and response.

“One of Vietnam’s prominent and practical contributions to the forum was its successful organisation of the 2006 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, with a number of the event’s outcomes being seen as important landmarks in the APEC cooperation course, such as the Hanoi Action Plan for acceleration of the Bogor Goals, and commitments to APEC reform,” Mr Khiem noted.

He went on to say that following the 2006 event in Hanoi, Vietnam proposed a range of initiatives for boosting cooperation between members, including the initiatives on trade facilitation, intellectual property, emergency response, corruption and epidemic prevention.

This year, in addition to traditional cooperation areas, Vietnam’s new initiatives focused on improving capacity of member economies in the areas of food security, health care and emergency response.

These initiatives are expected to foster cooperation and increase the sharing of experiences among APEC member economies as well as between them and related partners, the deputy PM said.

As the initiatives focus on capacity building, they will provide Vietnamese staff members with training courses to improve their knowledge and capacity in order to better serve the country’s process of regional and international integration, he added.

This year, the APEC Leaders’ Week is held in Lima, Peru, from November 16-23.