Gender equality should be placed high on the APEC's agenda in order to ensure sustainable development for the region, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the 11^th APEC Women Leaders Network Meeting opening in Hanoi on September 19.

Priorities should be given to generating jobs and creating equal opportunities for women through developing small- and medium-sized businesses, addressing social issues, protecting women's rights, and driving back social evils, said the PM.

PM Dung affirmed that Vietnam has given priorities to ensuring gender equality and promoting women's role. The State, he added, has always taken great care to improve the living conditions of Vietnamese women. The Government set up a Committee for Advancement of Women and built a national strategy for the purpose during the 2001-2010 period. Ten out of 20 targets of the strategy have been accomplished, including generating jobs, increasing occupational time for rural women, eliminating illiteracy, reducing the rate of pregnancy-related fatality, and promoting the participation of women at People's Councils.

Speaking at the meeting, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc said that supporting businesswomen is always placed high on the agenda of Vietnam's business development programmes. In 2001, the Government issued Decree 90 supporting small- and medium-sized businesses. It stated that businesswomen will be given priority in all supporting programmes of the government, including local investment promotion, financial assistance accession, land and commercial development services.

The four-day meeting, which draws nearly 400 delegates from 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) member economies, focuses on strengthening competitiveness of women-owned businesses to develop trade and investment.

Three sessions of the meeting will discuss priorities of APEC and the network's development in the second decade. Improving capacity and linkage competence of the network, identifying the network's top priorities, and enhancing the competitiveness of businesswomen for sustainable development and prosperity will also be high on the agenda of these sessions.

Four conferences on businesswomen with dynamic and effective economic development, businesswomen and prosperous development, and how businesswomen should do to deal with social and environmental issues will be held in the framework of the meeting. (VNA)