Pacific Rim leaders convened Monday for an annual meeting where efforts to seek regional free trade agreements and ways to sustain the fragile global economic recovery are expected to top the agenda.

Leaders from the 21-member APEC are also expected to endorse an agreement proposed by host China to set up an anti-corruption network in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Among those attending this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit are South Korean President Park Geun-hye, U.S. President Barack Obama, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

China is seeking to speed up the creation of a sprawling APEC-wide free trade agreement, better known as FTAAP, even though the world's second-largest economy is reluctant to open up its own market dominated by state-run companies. 

The idea of creating the FTAAP has been discussed for many years at the annual APEC gatherings, but China has stepped up diplomatic efforts in recent months to make it a formal agenda item, a move seen as bolstering its economic clout in the region. 

The push by China for the FTAAP is likely to meet resistance by the U.S. and some APEC members, which have made efforts to seal a 12-nation free trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that currently excludes China. 

APEC foreign and trade ministers, however, agreed to launch a feasibility study for the FTAAP in their final meeting Saturday ahead of the summit. 

 "In order to translate the FTAAP from a vision to reality, we agree to kick off and advance the process in a comprehensive and systematic manner towards the eventual realization of the FTAAP," the ministers said in a statement. 

"We agree to launch a collective strategic study on issues related to the realization of the FTAAP and adopt the outline of this study."

Representing about 40 percent of the world's population, APEC accounts for more than half of global gross domestic product. 

While economic matters will dominate the APEC summit, at least on the surface, geopolitical tensions, including the crisis in Ukraine and North Korea's nuclear weapons program, are likely to top the agenda at bilateral summits on the sidelines. 

Ahead of a bilateral summit between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea on Saturday released two Americans who had been detained in the isolated country.

Park and Xi were scheduled to hold a bilateral summit in Beijing with North Korea and ongoing negotiations for a bilateral free trade deal topping the agenda. 

Media attention has been also focused on whether Xi and Abe will hold their first formal summit as prospects for such a bilateral meeting have been growing after the two nations pledged to seek better ties last week. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the signs of a thaw in China-Japan relations. 

"Any steps that the two countries can take to improve the relationship and reduce tensions is helpful, not just to the two countries, but helpful to the region," Kerry told reporters in Beijing on Saturday. (Yonhap)