When attending the 27th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China would hold a seminar on digital poverty reduction to give full play to the advantages of digital technology and help the cause of poverty eradication in the Asia Pacific region. The State Internet Information Office of China, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the People's Government of Guizhou Province, actively implemented the plan to hold the APEC Digital Poverty Reduction Seminar in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, from June 8 to 9 in a combination of online and offline ways. Entrusted by Zhuang Rongwen, Director of the National Cyberspace Office, Yang Xiaowei, Deputy Director of the National Cyberspace Office, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. Lu Yongzheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee and Minister of Publicity, and this year's APEC host, Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand Vangelis Vitalis, Chairman of APEC Senior Officials' Meeting in 2021, Rebecca Maria, Executive Director of APEC Secretariat, Krasna Paubenis, Senior Officer of Chile APEC, and Lu Mei, Senior Officer of China APEC addressed the opening ceremony. Guo Ruimin, Vice Governor of Guizhou Province, attended the opening ceremony.

Yang Xiaowei pointed out that in the past decades, APEC economies have made remarkable achievements in poverty eradication by working together to overcome difficulties. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has organized and implemented an unprecedented, most powerful, and most populous anti-poverty campaign in human history, and has made landmark achievements. APEC economies should take the initiative to seize the opportunities of the times, give play to the advantages of digital technology, and promote the anti-poverty cause in the Asia Pacific region. He put forward four suggestions: first, build consensus and seek digital inclusive development; Second, consolidate the foundation and build digital infrastructure; Third, deepen the application and enhance the endogenous development power; Fourth, enhance exchanges and carry out digital poverty reduction cooperation.

Lu Yongzheng pointed out that, as the main battlefield of poverty alleviation nationwide, Guizhou insists on deeply implementing the important directive spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping on Guizhou's work, regards poverty alleviation as the top priority and the first livelihood project, and regards improving people's well-being as the starting point and end result of online poverty alleviation, writing a wonderful chapter of China's miracle of poverty alleviation in Guizhou. The China International Big Data Industry Expo just held in Guizhou has yielded fruitful results, fully demonstrating that the digital economy meets the demand for power transformation of high-quality development and has unique advantages in narrowing the gap between rich and poor. This seminar is of great significance for giving full play to the positive role of new production factors such as data in promoting poverty reduction and rural revitalization. We look forward to the participants' suggestions for Guizhou and even the global digital economy and poverty reduction, and their wisdom for better playing the role of digital poverty reduction in the global poverty reduction.

In his speech, Vangelis Vitalis thanked China for hosting this seminar. This meeting focused on digital infrastructure, digital literacy and other issues, which will help to implement the APEC roadmap for the Internet and the Digital Economy and achieve the APEC Butragaya Vision 2040 and other APEC programmatic documents.

Rebecca Maria said, APEC attaches great importance to the inclusive development of the digital economy, and has established a digital economy steering group to coordinate and guide relevant work. The APEC Internet and Digital Economy Roadmap is an important starting point to promote APEC's digital economy work, and also an important content of the attention of the participants. APEC economies should be committed to improving citizens' digital literacy and sharing the dividends of digitalization.

The seminar will hold three thematic discussions and organize field surveys of participants. From the APEC Secretariat and APEC member economies such as Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Thailand, relevant international organizations and industry associations such as the World Economic Forum, the Global Mobile Communications System Association, the U.S. China Trade National Committee, representatives of embassies in China such as Russia and Peru, as well as relevant Chinese government agencies, think tanks A total of about 200 enterprise representatives participated online and offline.

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