Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola, accompanied by Undersecretary for International Economic Relations, José Miguel Ahumada, participated in the Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, APEC, “Balanced, Inclusive and Sustainable Growth”.

In her speech, the Secretary of State spoke of the challenges facing APEC economies, given the severe effects of climate change and stressed that protecting the environment should be a foreign policy priority.

In this sense, he highlighted the turquoise foreign policy that the government is promoting. “I am proud to say that we have led many international initiatives aimed at protecting our environment. In the Americas, Chile has led the “Americas for the Protection of the Ocean” initiative, which aims to establish a network of ecologically interconnected marine protected areas that stretches from Canada to Chile. In fact, currently 43% of Chile’s jurisdictional waters are under environmental protection, a fundamental tool to guarantee the health of the oceans,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He added that APEC has played a key role in Chile’s foreign policy and reaffirmed the commitment to “work with all member economies to strengthen multilateral cooperation in the protection of the environment and the oceans, both global and regional level”. In this context, he appreciated that “our roadmaps on the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and on marine debris, have been well received and are being applied by APEC members”.

Furthermore, he commended Thailand for focusing its year on promoting the “bio-circular green economy” (BCG). “We appreciate this initiative as part of efforts to comprehensively address all environmental challenges for a sustainable planet. For this reason, I wish to reaffirm Chile’s full support for the Bangkok Goals, a statement to which we have actively contributed throughout the year”.

“We are confident that BCG’s business model will significantly contribute to sustainable growth, biodiversity protection and social inclusion in line with the SDGs, which will effectively translate into a sustainable and inclusive recovery and growth at long term,” the minister said.