APEC's annual Leaders' Meeting is the association's paramount event, culminating a year of meetings designed to foster trade and investment liberalization among the 21 APEC members. Because APEC operates under a system of voluntary action and "open regionalism," in which changes in trade policy are extended not just to APEC members, but to all trading partners, these meetings rarely result in concrete, binding "deliverables." The Leaders' Meeting, in particular, usually results in a joint Leaders' Declaration that enumerates a series of commitments and pledges on steps to be taken to liberalize the trade and investment regimes of the APEC members. In addition, the United States usually has taken advantage of the gathering of the 21 APEC leaders to hold bilateral meetings with selected leaders. Although President Obama did not attend this year's meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did meet with the representatives from Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan while in Vladivostok. Plans for a meeting with Hong Kong's new Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying were cancelled because he was unable to attend due to important domestic duties. Prior to her arrival at the APEC Leaders' Meeting, Secretary Clinton met with Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and China's President Hu Jintao. This year's Joint Leaders' Declaration focused on the four themes selected by host member Russia: (1) Advancing trade and investment liberalization and regional economic integration; (2) strengthening food security; (3) establishing reliable supply chains; and (4) promoting cooperation to foster innovative growth. On the issue of regional economic integration, the declaration reaffirmed APEC's commitment to the Bogor Goals, as well as "APEC's role as an incubator of a FTAAP [Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific]." The declaration also noted the completion of a model chapter on transparency, adding to the list of model chapters developed by APEC for use by its members when negotiating bilateral or multilateral trade agreements. On trade and investment liberalization, the document highlighted the agreement of tariff reduction for environmental goods (see " Agreement on Environmental Goods Tariff Reductions " below). Regarding food security, the Leaders' Declaration called for the implementation of the Niigata Declaration of 2010 and the Kazan Declaration on Food Security (see " Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture " below) and a commitment to strengthen efforts to combat illegal trade in wildlife. The leaders also agreed to promote more reliable supply chains by various means, including reducing the "time, cost, and uncertainty of moving goods and services through the Asia-Pacific region," in order to achieve the goal of a 10% improvement in supply-chain performance by 2015. In addition, the declaration committed the APEC members to develop non-discriminatory, market-driven innovation policies that promote greater involvement of small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) and women in the field of technological innovation. Although as the host for this year's meetings, Russia set the overall agenda for the Leaders' Meeting and the resulting Leaders' Declaration, the United States delegation had its own priorities to pursue in Vladivostok. Below is a summary (in alphabetical order) of the five key issues addressed at the APEC meetings in Vladivostok, according to officials with the U.S. State Department and U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR's) office. The leading outcome for the United States, according to U.S. officials, was the agreement to lower tariffs on 54 categories of "environmental goods" to 5% or less by 2015. At the 19 th Leaders' Meeting held in Honolulu in November 2011, the APEC members agreed to lower tariffs to 5% by 2015 on a then-undesignated list of environmental goods. During the ensuing 10 months, representatives of each APEC member suggested goods to be included on the list. The U.S. representatives reportedly focused on goods that were clearly related to environmental issues and would be commercially credible. According to interviews with State Department and USTR officials, the United States is generally pleased with the final list of environmental goods. Noting the "negative influence on the world's economy from carbon emissions," the leaders pledged to "strengthen APEC energy security" by promoting greater energy efficiency and the development of cleaner sources of sustainable energy. The APEC leaders also reiterated the commitment made at the 19 th Leaders' Meeting to reduce aggregate energy intensity by 45% by 2035, based on 2005 data. In Annex B to the 2012 Leaders' Declaration, the APEC members agreed to increase the use of natural gas; promote investment in energy infrastructure (including natural gas liquefaction facilities); and strengthen cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In their declaration, the leaders recognized the global and regional challenge of providing secure access to a safe and sufficient food supply to a growing population. To that end, they made a commitment to increasing sustainable agricultural production by investing in improved agricultural technology; developing a "more open, stable, predictable, rule-based, and transparent agricultural trading system"; and combatting illegal and/or excessive fishing and harvesting of flora and fauna. Secretary Clinton, partially as the result of her August trip to Africa, reportedly pressed for stronger measures by APEC members to combat the trade in illegal wildlife. The leaders' efforts on food security and sustainable agriculture built on two previous APEC declarations. In October 2012, APEC held its first ministerial meeting on food security in Niigata, Japan, resulting in the issuance of the Niigata Declaration. The Niigata Declaration established two shared goals for APEC members: (1) The sustainable development of the agricultural sector; and (2) The facilitation of investment, trade and markets. In May 2012, APEC released the Kazan Declaration following its third ministerial meeting on food security, held in Kazan, Russia. The Kazan Declaration confirmed APEC's commitment to increasing sustainable agricultural production by promoting foreign direct investment, sharing agricultural technology and research, harmonizing domestic regulations with international standards, and improving food access for "socially vulnerable groups." The ministers made particular note of the damage caused by overfishing in the region, and called for sustainable management of marine ecosystems. The 18 th Leaders' Meeting, held in Yokohama, Japan, called for APEC to create a path for a "robust community" based in part on innovative growth. The theme of innovative growth has been further explored in subsequent Leaders' Meetings, including this year's event in Vladivostok. The 2012 Leaders' Declaration highlighted the importance of including small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) and women into the development of innovation in the Asia-Pacific region. Annex A of the declaration maps other aspects of promoting innovative growth that the APEC members agreed to pursue. APEC has sought ways of improving the reliability and efficiency of supply chains in the region for several years. The 2010 Leaders' Declaration set a goal of achieving a 10% improvement in supply-chain performance by 2015, by reducing the time, cost, and uncertainty of moving goods and services through the Asia-Pacific region. This year, one of the foci of discussion was on the identification of "chokepoints" in the supply chains, and improving infrastructure and policies to ameliorate the identified "chokepoints." In addition, the Leaders' Declaration called for APEC members to promote "greener, smarter, more efficient, and intelligent supply chains." Another issue identified as critical to improving supply chain efficiency was improving export consolidation. According to U.S. officials, the APEC leaders agreed that in preparation for next year's Leaders' Meetings, the members would conduct comprehensive supply chain performance assessments. In addition, APEC would examine ways of networking smaller ports in the region into existing supply chains. During this year's meeting, the APEC leaders also discussed efforts to reduce barriers to trade and to enhance trade facilitation. The Leaders' Declaration reaffirmed their commitment to "rollback protectionist measures," such as export and investment restrictions. To reduce technical barriers to trade, the APEC members agreed to increase the transparency of their trade regulations, and continue their efforts to advance regulatory convergence based on international standards. In addition, APEC will continue its capacity building initiatives, including the exchange of best practices related to key issues, such as secure trade. According to some observers, past APEC efforts designed to lower technical barriers to trade and facilitate trade have had a significant impact on intra-regional trade and investment. A study released by APEC's Economic Committee a month after the 2012 Leaders' Meeting appears to support this assertion. The study reports that the ease of doing business in APEC economies, as measured by several commercial factors, had improved by an average of 8.2% between 2009 and 2011. The results exceeded APEC's target of a 5% improvement during the same time period, and were nearly a third of APEC's goal of a 25% improvement by 2015. During President Obama's first term, there seemed to be a subtle shift in the role of APEC in U.S. trade policy and its interaction with the ongoing TPP negotiations. The TPP was initially presented by the United States as a model for establishing a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as part of APEC's efforts to promote trade and investment liberalization in the region. Other APEC members have similarly portrayed alternative regional integration models, such as the ASEAN+3 and the ASEAN+6, as possible paths towards the creation of a FTAAP. More recently, senior U.S. trade officials describe APEC as an incubator of new ideas or concepts that can eventually be incorporated into a binding and more formal TPP.