DA NANG, Vietnam - Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang on Wednesday urged business community from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members to remain as a champion of regional economic integration.

"The APEC business community plays a pioneering role in the development of new technology and energy industries, business cooperation, and next-generation trade and investment, bringing about greater resources to better meet the people's material and cultural needs," Quang said in his opening speech at an APEC CEO summit in the central Vietnamese city.

The Vietnamese president called on the Asia-Pacific business community to play a leading role in fulfilling the Bogor Goals of trade and investment liberalization by 2020.

He also urged them to bolster efforts to ensure the inclusiveness of growth and realize a post-2020 APEC vision on building a peaceful, stable, dynamic, integrated and prosperous Asia-Pacific.

As part of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders' Week, the three-day meeting is the largest annual event of the business community in Asia-Pacific, which gathers leaders of APEC economies as well as senior officials and entrepreneurs.

They are expected to exchange views on global and regional trade and investment, while sharing experience and designing measures to strengthen cooperation between businesses of the APEC economies and rest of the world.