LIMA, November 14. /TASS/. The issue of lifting trade barriers will be discussed at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk told reporters, adding that the organization’s ambitious goal of organizing a free trade zone in the region persists as well.
"Attention will be traditionally paid to economic development at the meeting, which means that the lifting of trade barriers will obviously be discussed," he said.
APEC is "a special structure," where various countries may express their viewpoint on development of the region, Overchuk noted. "Initially the task was set to create a free trade zone in the region. This is a very ambitious goal, which persists," he added.
Moscow supports the idea and works in that direction, the official said. "However, it should be understood that here we have transferred part of our sovereignty to the level of the Eurasian Economic Union, and when making decisions on development of free trade zones we take coordinated decisions based on a consensus together with the Eurasian five countries," he explained.
Among other issues to be discussed Russian Deputy PM mentioned involvement of "those people that have some gray income," into the legal sector of the economy.
Moreover, access to electricity for population of the region will also be discussed in Lima. "This is still a traditional problem in this region. It is expected that both renewable energy and the shift to green energy will be discussed, there are many issues here as we say always and everywhere that this shift should be produced without additional problems for developing countries, countries with low income, that the financing of this shift should not bring them to a new financial bondage," Overchuk emphasized.
"We will listen to what will be said about new hydrogen energy. This issue is also on the agenda. Digitalization issues will surely be discussed, from the viewpoint of business, from the viewpoint of creating paperless technologies that support the movement of goods, including cross-border movement of goods," he said.
Russia is interested much in developing services of this type, first of all as a "transit country, as a country that is a crossing in Eurasia, and as a country that describes itself as the shortest route between the Asian-Pacific region and the remaining Eurasia," the official added. Among other issues related to digitalization, he also expects regulation of artificial intelligence to be discussed.