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The 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum will implement new trade security measures starting in February 2009, the director of economic-technological and human security reform, Quinton Devlin, announced today.

"The measures to be implemented are those developed since last July and take into account issues of identity-related crimes, economic fraud and identification of stolen passports," he said to Andina.

Devlin added that with these new strategies, the APEC bloc seeks to enhance trade security in a broader and more comprehensive way, promoting a joint work between technological and human resources.

"It is vital that the security of cargo is fully guaranteed so there could be a more prosperous trade with sustained growth rates", he said at the Third Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM III) and related meetings of APEC.

In this regard, he mentioned that although having an effective security system involves costs for the APEC economies, those are better than the losses caused by criminal acts.

Devlin noted that APEC has an important role in establishing safety standards worldwide, mainly in issues related to biometric identification, a system which enables to find the physical characteristic or identity of a human being.

The 21 economies that make up APEC are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, USA, Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

News Source: ANDINA