Prime Minister Tony Abbott heads to Beijing this weekend to attend the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Meeting.
He'll join leaders from across the region as they focus on a list of key issues, including trade and regional security, regional economic integration and growing concerns over the state of the world's economies.
The 21 Pacific rim economies are expected to show their commitment to the goals of free, open trade and investment.
With Asia expected to become the world's largest producer of goods and services, and also the largest consumer of them, APEC is emerging as a major economic bloc.
Set up in 1989, it consists of *21 member countries.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaolis is calling for deeper regional cooperation to stave off downward pressure on the world economy.
"The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation must effectively shoulder the important mission of promoting regional and global development, and pushing to formulate a new pattern of opening up and development that features policy coordination, growth linkage, and interest integration."
China's bid to establish a multilateral investment bank will be high on the agenda although the move has put it at loggerheads with the United States.
At recent talks in Jakarta, U-S Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly urged against backing it over concerns that such an entity could challenge the effectiveness of other major financial institutions.
These include the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Mr Abbott had supported Australia joining the proposed infrastructure bank but wants the investment bank to transparent and accountable to its backers.
He says he thinks other countries will also come on board if transparency can be achieved.
"And not only will we be enthusiastic to join it, but I think countries like Japan and America also will be enthusiastic to join it. The more countries there are involved in this multilateral institution the better."
The annual economic forum also comes as negotiations continue on the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact.
The new regional trade deal would involve the ten members of the Association of South East Asian Nations plus Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and India.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb, who is negotiating the deal with 12 of the key countries, says the talks have focused on market access negotiations and trade and investment rules.
"If we can achieve more seamless trade between all of these 12 countries, which account for 40 per cent of world GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and one-third of all world trade, then the benefits will be immeasurable: less regulation, the removal of tariffs, mutual recognition of standards, reducing approval times - all of these types of things will produce very substantial benefits."
Growing concerns over corruption in international financial systems will also be on the APEC table.
China announced with Australia in July an operation called Fox Hunt, targeting corrupt officials who have fled overseas with their ill-gotten gains.
The US, Canada and Australia have been named the three most popular destinations for suspected Chinese economic criminals.
It's estimated that $1.08 trillion has illegally flowed out of China between 2002 and 2011.
Maggie Murphy is from corruption monitor Transparency International.
Ms Murphy says setting up company registers will go a long way to stopping the use of shell companies (companies set up to hide others) to move money internationally.
"I think APEC is an incredibly useful forum. It would be really in China's interests to adopt something like these public registries. They are doing a crackdown right now. especially on public officials that are siphoning funds out of the country. And you will probably find most of those public officials are able to do so through these secret companies. The World Bank has found that in 70 per cent of grand corruption cases, secret companies were used."
Maritime security is a perennial agenda item for regional talks.
Years of maritime tensions within the group give rise to discussion over how to handle disputes with China over rival claims in the South China Sea.
China insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the sea, including waters close to the coasts of its Asian neighbours.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan, also have sometimes overlapping claims to the sea.
Tensions escalated last year amid complaints by the Philippines and Vietnam that China was becoming increasingly aggressive in staking its claim to the sea.
