South Korea held APEC’s first ministerial-level dialogue on anti-corruption cooperation to discuss key drivers of sustainable governance to uphold a high standard of integrity.
Seoul hailed the event as one positioning itself at the forefront of anti-corruption cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region last week.
“This meeting was a meaningful opportunity to lay the groundwork for practical anti-corruption cooperation within APEC and to strengthen the regional agenda,” Ryu Chul-whan, chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), said in a press briefing Monday.
Held from July 30 to Friday in Incheon, the three-day event marked a turning point in APEC’s anti-corruption agenda.
While the APEC’s Anti-Corruption and Transparency Experts’ Working Group has operated since 2005, this was the first time that either ministerial-level or vice ministerial-level officials from 20 member economies gathered alongside representatives from global institutions such as the OECD, World Bank and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
