The meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers kicked off Saturday in eastern Java's Surabaya, which is expected to produce a number of concrete results for the APEC Summit to be held in Indonesia's resort island Bali in early October.

The trade ministers will mainly focus on three topics in the meeting including movement towards the realization of the Bogor Goals, schemes to gain sustainable economic growth and equity and the promotion of connectivity among Asia-pacific economies, Yuri O. Thamrin, Indonesian Foreign Ministry's director general for Asian, African and Asia-Pacific affairs, said at the introduction session of the meeting.

The two-day meeting is being attended by delegates from 19 out of APEC's 21 member economies, representatives from ASEAN, WTO, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and APEC Secretariat.

Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng is participating in the meeting.

At the end of the meeting, the trade officials are expected to issue a joint declaration.

Indonesia is the rotating chair of APEC in 2013 and it has put forward the theme "Resilient Asia Pacific, Engine of Global growth."

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