APEC meetings begin

APEC meetings begin

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Reuters): Finance ministers from Pacific Rim nations began a two-day meeting on Saturday to get the diverse regional grouping back on track even as soaring global crude oil prices threatened to steal the limelight.

"One of the main issues on the agenda is to enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the APEC finance ministers' process," a Southeast Asian finance ministry official told Reuters.

"But many members have raised the issue of high oil prices though it was not formally on the agenda," he said.

APEC finance deputies, who prepared the agenda for the ministerial meeting, said it might formally urge the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to raise crude output to combat high global oil prices.