The APEC Secretariat is based in Singapore. The Secretariat is staffed by 20 diplomats seconded from APEC member economies and by 20 local staff . And executive director, who is always an Ambassador seconded from that year’s APEC host, heads the secretariat. Since Thailand is this year’s host of apec, the current Executive Director, Ambassador PiamsakMilintachinda, is a Thai . The Deputy Executive Director is always from next year’s APEC host and he or she becomes the Executive Director the following year when the new apec host take over.The current Deputy Director , Chile’s Ambassador Mario Artaza, will serve as Secretariat’s Executive Director for Chile’s year as host of APEC in 2004.The other 20 seconded diplomats are currently from 18 of the APEC members and are from Foreigh affairs and trade ministries.The secretariat work under the direction of the APEC senior officials and is the core support mechanism for the APEC process .It provides advisory, operational and logistical/technical services to member economies and APEC forums. It also provides advice on the design of APEC Projects, manages project funding, and evaluates the projects after they are completed. It addition to maintaining the website, it produces a range of publications and liaises with the media.Finally, it provide APEC’s institutional memory through its library, Archives and databases