The 13th Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI) was held in Chile from May 9 to 11, 2019. More than 100 participants from 15 APEC member economies, including China, the United States, Australia, South Korea, Chile, Macao of China, and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) attended the meeting. Deputy Director-General Chen Linhao of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Science and Technology, headed the Chinese delegation and presided over the meeting as Vice Chairman of PPSTI. 

With the theme of“Innovation for Sustainable Development”, the meeting featured such topics as digital transformation and integration 4.0, women‘s role in science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics (STEAM) and global change monitoring. The meeting focused on discussions about boosting the participation of the private sector in PPSTI, PPSTI’s work plan for 2019, PPSTI project team’s recommendations, innovation policy dialogue and other mechanisms, and adopted the PPSTI background document, the revised PPSTI cental and long-term mechanism guidance outline and PPSTI’s work plan for 2019. On the afternoon of May 10, the APEC Research and Technology Forum was held to discuss the mechanism and future development of PPSTI. On May 11, an APEC Women’s STEM Seminar was held to formulate guidelines for governments, academic institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises to promote women‘s STEM competence.

The Chinese delegation included 11 representatives from the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, the Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shanghai, APEC Technology Transfer Center, International Technology Transfer Network, Beijing International Exchange Association and Beijing Didi Infinity Technology and Development Co., Ltd. In the group session on May 9, the Chinese delegation presented projects funded by China‘s APEC Fund, involving discussions on SMEs, blockchain, intelligent transportation, incubators and other fields. Discussions were also held on specific topics of the plenary session.

Background: APEC is an important organization aiming to promote regional economic and social development as well as regional economic and technological cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region. PPSTI is one of the working groups under APEC Senior Officials‘Meeting (SOM) Steering Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation (SCE). It was established after the renaming of the Working Group on Industrial Science and Technology (ISTWG) in August 2012. The leading body of PPSTI is its Management Committee, which is composed of one Chairman, two Vice-Chairmen and one Principal Advisor. The representative of China currently serves as a Vice-Chairman for a term of office from 2019 to 2020. PPSTI holds a regular meeting in the first and second half of each year respectively to discuss APEC cooperation in science, technology and innovation. The Ministry of Science and Technology is China’s administrative authority and point of contact for this cooperation mechanism.