Ministers responsible for tourism from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) focused their discussions on bolstering the region's travel agency in a retreat meeting in Vietnam Monday, a local official told Xinhua.

The delegates discussed issues on assuring safety and security for tourists, developing sustainable tourism, facilitating visitors' travel in the region, improving tourism infrastructure and products, preserving cultural features for the sustainable tourism development, and preventing and dealing with risks in the tourism sector, the official from the Vietnam Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said on the sidelines of the meeting, declining to be named.

They also touched upon the demand of strengthening tourism cooperation among the APEC economic members, and tourism development plans and strategies of each member, and problems facing global tourism, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, the official said.

Also on Monday, leaders of the VNAT had bilateral meetings with their counterparts from China, Japan, the Philippines, and the United Nations World Tourism Organization, to discuss ways to boost their tourism cooperation in the coming time.

In the meeting between Vietnam and China, the two sides stressed the need of speeding up their tourism cooperation agreements already signed, creating more favorable conditions for Chinese people to visit Vietnam, and strengthening their cooperation on manpower training.

APEC, established in 1989 for facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region, has 21 members, which account for more than a third of the world's population, nearly 60 percent of the world's gross domestic product, and about 47 percent of the world trade.

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2006)