so joining us live now to give us some important background is vinnie agarwal, political science professor and director of the berkeley apec study center. thank you so much, professor agarwal. thank you for having me. >> appreciate it. >> so we want to know more about it because a lot of people actually they're hearing apec, but they don't know what it is. so, first of all, what does it stand for and what does it do? >> so apec stands for asia-pacific economic cooperation, and it's a forum that was set up in 1989. it started with 12 members and it is increased to 21 member economies. they are called member economies because hong kong comma china and chinese, taipei or taiwan are members of this agreement. so this is a very important agreement because it's been the it spawned a number of trade agreements such as the trans-pacific partnership, the tpp, which the united states was negotiating. in some ways it's also spanned the regional comprehensive economic partnership, which has been led by china, japan and other countries. in addition, has expanded to include other issues. women's right,

earlier today, we spoke with uc berkeley politics professor vinny agarwal about the significance of this summit here in the bay area. >> apec has sometimes been accused of a poor excuse to chat , but actually chatting is really important because you are able to work through problems and there are lots of other fora in which we can work with these countries on a bilateral minilateral basis to actually make rules and procedures and create international arrangements that will have a binding effect on the members in the in the region of the asia pacific. >> the professor says the highly anticipated meeting between president biden and xi jinping will be an opportunity to establish a crucial line of communication and collaboration between the two countries. >> in addition to heads of state and ceos from around the world, the apec summit has brought more than 2000 journalists to san francisco, so print broadcast and online reporters are working in the international media center to cover their respective economies and the impact of the meetings on them. one japanese journalist told us that they

and to do that, we want to bring in vinny agarwal, who is a distinguished professor of political science at uc berkeley and also directs the berkeley apec study center. vinny, great to have you on. we appreciate the time today. we heard from greg that the discussions here with secretary yellen focused on some of the key challenges that apec countries are facing. that includes slowing economic growth and continued high inflation. why do we expect comes out of these discussions? are we likely to see meaningful agreements that emerge to try to address these challenges? >> i don't think we're going to actually see direct agreements. i think apec is not a decision making forum. we're much more likely to see working party discussions. we're much more likely to see various directives and so on, but nothing that will actually be like a official all official ruling of any kind because it's not an adjudicative adjudicatory body. so apec is basically a forum for discussion and i think that's what we should be looking at. >> yeah, but but a lot of the discussions, professor, are going to focus, as w

we talked to uc berkeley political science professor vinny agarwal about the importance of this summit. >> apec has sometimes been accused of a poor excuse to chat, but actually chatting is really important because you are able to work through problems and there are lots of other fora in which we can work with these countries on a bilateral minilateral basis to actually make rules and procedures and create international arrangements that will have a binding effect on the members in the in the region of the asia pacific. now, the experts say tomorrow's highly anticipated meeting between president biden and xi jinping of china will be a chance to establish a crucial line of communication between the two nations. >> it could lead to further collaborations that will benefit both nations. well the summit is designed to strengthen the asian pacific region. several events have already brought attendees together from world leaders to bay area business owners. >> ktvu is amber lee went to some of those receptions and heard from attendees who hope this week will have a lasting impact on the city