Cultural initiatives, easier travel among strategic goals of members

To improve people-to-people connectivity, the APEC Connectivity Blueprint for 2015-25 says the 21APEC economies are committed to continuing the expansion of the number of holders of the APEC Business Travel Card and to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the ABTC arrangement. [Special coverage]

The APEC members will undertake to improve cross-border education cooperation.

They also resolve to achieve 1million intra-APEC student exchanges per year by 2020and increase the number of student exchanges to developing economies.

They welcome domestic efforts by several economies to implement measures to ease visa restrictions for tourists as well as initiate programs to facilitate immigration processing.

They will make efforts to achieve 800 million APEC tourist arrivals by 2025, and commit to establishing an APEC-wide Code of Conduct for Travel Providers to reduce travelers' costs and uncertainties related to tourism.

They will intensify cooperation within APEC in promoting cultural exchanges, by aiming to hold at least one cultural awareness event by each APEC economy in every other APEC economy per year by 2017.

They note with appreciation the annual APEC Science Prize for Innovation Research and Education, which recognizes young scientists who have demonstrated cooperation with scientists from other APEC member economies, as well as a commitment to scientific research.