APEC leaders release declaration, adopt new vision for regional growth

Issued by the  APEC Secretariat

Yokohama, Japan, November 14, 2010 – APEC Leaders gathered under the theme “Change and Action” to “articulate our vision of further building and integrating the Asia-Pacific region in the 21^st Century, and paths to realize that vision.”

At the conclusion of their two-day meeting, APEC Leaders adopted a declaration as well as a Leaders’ Statement on 2010 Bogor Goals Assessment, the Report on APEC’s 2010 Economies’ Progress Towards the Bogor Goals, the APEC Leaders’ Growth Strategy and Pathways to FTAAP.

Significant progress towards the Bogor Goals

“Through our individual and collective efforts toward achieving the Bogor Goals, the Asia-Pacific region has achieved substantial reductions in barriers to trade and investment. These efforts have led to increased trade and investment flows, sustained economic growth, and a vast improvement in the welfare of people in the region.”

“We are confident that APEC is well on track toward achieving the goal of free and open trade and investment among its economies.”

The assessment was conducted on progress towards achieving the Bogor Goals by the five industrialized economies by 2010 as well as eight developing economies, who volunteered ahead of 2020.

“We endorse the Report on APEC’s 2010 Economies’ Progress Towards the Bogor Goals and conclude that while more work remains to be done, these 13 economies have made significant progress toward achieving the Bogor Goals.”

Path toward a robust economy

“We set forth the APEC Leaders’ Growth Strategy as APEC’s first substantial effort to provide a comprehensive long-term framework for promoting high-quality growth in the region.” 

“We will implement the Growth Strategy out to 2015, focusing on the five desired attributes of balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative, and secure growth.

“Our Growth Strategy includes an Action Plan that encompasses work elements on structural reform; human resource and entrepreneurship development; green growth; a knowledge-based economy; and human security.”

“The Action Plan will be supported and promoted through specific work programs that draw in all aspects of APEC’s work, including sectoral Ministerial meetings, committees, APEC sub-fora, extensive regional networks of experts, and APEC’s close cooperation with the business community.”

“We will review our progress toward implementing the Growth Strategy in 2015.”

Accelerating regional economic integration

“We will take concrete steps toward realization of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which is a major instrument to further APEC’s regional economic integration agenda. An FTAAP should be pursued as a comprehensive free trade agreement by developing and building on ongoing regional undertakings, such as the ASEAN+3, ASEAN+6, and the Trans Pacific Partnership among others.”

“To this end, APEC will make an important and meaningful contribution as an incubator of an FTAAP by providing leadership and intellectual input into the process of its development, and by playing a critical role in defining, shaping, and addressing the “next generation” trade and investment issues that FTAAP should contain.”

“APEC should contribute to the pursuit of an FTAAP by continuing and further developing its work on sectoral initiatives in such areas as investment; services; e-commerce, rules of origin; standards and conformance; trade facilitation; and environmental goods and services.”

Balanced growth

“We must take steps to build a foundation for stronger, more sustainable, and more balanced growth in the future.”

“We note the importance of strengthening multilateral cooperation to promote external sustainability and pursuing the full range of policies conducive to reducing excessive imbalances and maintaining current account imbalances at sustainable levels.”

“We will move toward more market-determined exchange rate systems and enhance exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying economic fundamentals and will refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies.  Advanced economies, including those with reserve currencies, will be vigilant against excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates. These actions will help mitigate the risk of excessive volatility in capital flows facing some emerging market economies.”

Supporting the multilateral trading system

“We should continue to take steps to build a stronger and more resilient global financial system. We remain committed to maintaining open markets and fighting protectionism. We reaffirm our common resolve to support the recovery in a collaborative and coordinated way.”

“We reaffirm our strong commitment to bring the Doha Development Agenda to a prompt and successful conclusion. Bearing in mind that 2011 will be a critically important “window of opportunity,” we direct our Ministers to empower our representatives to engage in comprehensive negotiations with a sense of urgency in the end game, built on the progress achieved, including with regard to modalities, consistent with the Doha mandate.”

“We affirm our commitment to win domestic support in our respective systems for a strong agreement.”

Resisting protectionism

“In our continued efforts to resist protectionism, we agree to extend our commitment on standstill made in 2008 to the end of 2013 to refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation inconsistent measures in all areas, including those that stimulate exports.”

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For more information, contact: Trudy Harris at th@apec.org or (+81) (0)80 3417 3130 (in Japan) or Michael Chapnick at mc@apec.org or (+81) (0)80 40841709 (in Japan)

APEC Finance Ministers contribute priorities to secure future growth

Issued by the APEC Secretariat

Kyoto, Japan, 6 November 2010 – APEC Finance Ministers agreed to contribute priorities for future growth at their meeting here on Saturday after exchanging views on current economic and financial developments and policy direction in the Asia-Pacific region.

 Issuing a statement at the end of their meeting, Ministers emphasised the importance for APEC members to take policy measures to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth in the region.

For the joint ministerial statement, visit: http://www.apec.org/apec/ministerial_statements/sectoral_ministerial/finance/2010_finance.html

Ministers agreed to submit the “Kyoto Report on Growth Strategy and Finance” to APEC Economic Leaders for their consideration when they meet next week in Yokohama.

The report identifies priorities for securing future growth, including rebalancing and strengthening of global demand, pursuing sound fiscal management, and enhancing finance to key sectors such as infrastructure, small and medium enterprises, households and green investment.

 In their joint statement Ministers acknowledged that the global economy is recovering from the recent financial crisis, but uncertainty remains.

While growth in the region is uneven across economies, they said financial reforms are proceeding and that APEC economies should continue to take steps to build a stronger and more resilient global financial system.

They also said that they remain committed to maintaining open markets and fighting protectionism.

 In support of recent moves by the G20, Ministers agreed to strengthen multilateral cooperation to promote external sustainability and pursue the full range of policies conducive to reducing excessive imbalances and maintaining current account imbalances at sustainable levels.

 Because of the weight of APEC economies and their role in the global economy, Ministers recognised that each member, whether a surplus or deficit economy, has to implement policy measures.

Economies with current account deficits will need to take steps to boost domestic saving while those with current account surpluses need to reduce their reliance on external demand and undertake structural reforms that catalyze stronger domestic demand-led growth.

 Ministers also said that they will move towards more market-determined exchange rate systems that reflect underlying economic fundamentals and will refrain from competitive devaluation of currencies. 

 They also said that they need to ensure appropriate financing for several key areas, including for infrastructure, to strengthen growth, enhance productivity, alleviate poverty and improve access to service delivery systems.

Ministers said they will continue to support emerging APEC economies as they implement public-private partnership infrastructure projects, including through a new mentoring program to be launched next year.

 Addressing the needs of micro, small and medium-size enterprises, and households, Ministers launched an APEC Financial Inclusion Initiative to identify concrete actions that financial policy makers can take to expand the reach of financial services to those that need them.

 Ministers committed to taking action to raise international regulatory standards to ensure a level playing field and avoid fragmentation of markets, protectionism and regulatory arbitrage while also recognising the importance of creating more open and integrated financial markets in the region.

 International financial institutions, including the Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank also addressed the meeting and provided analysis and economic forecasts for the region.

 The outcomes of the 17^th APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting will be delivered to APEC Economic Leaders when they meet in Yokohama, Japan next weekend.

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For more information please contact:

Michael Chapnick (in Japan): +65 9647-4847 (mobile) or mc@apec.org

Trudy Harris (in Japan): +81 (0)80 34173130 or +65 98983710 (mobiles) or th@apec.org

APEC nations reaffirm commitment to boost food security

Pacific Rim economies agreed on the need to boost agriculture production and facilitate farm trade and investment at the first ministerial meeting on food security held in Japan last week.

The 21 member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum adopted the Niigata Declaration on APEC Food security and an action plan aimed at rising world population and the threat of climate change.

“ Increasing the availability of sufficient, safe and nutritious food in the APEC region through expanded supply capacity, underpinned by variable rural communities, will be necessary to address a possible supply-demand imbalance for food that may result from future population and income growth,’ the declaration said

Papua New Guinea, a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations was represented by the Minister for Agriculture and Livestock, John Hickey, who was accompanied to Niigata prefecture by his departmental head, Anton Benjamin..

The gist of the Niigata Declaration on APEC Food security adopted by the 21 member economies are:

·        Recognise the need to expand food supply capacity;

·        Agree to cooperate to help mitigate climate change and enhance disaster preparedness in the agriculture sector;

·        Agree to promote responsible agricultural investment;

·        Agree to cooperate to facilitate improved agricultural trade; and

·        Renew commitment to a prompt conclusion of the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks.

The APEC forum first ministerial meeting on food security came as a need arose to focus on how to feed the increasing world population and ensure stability in food prices following price spikes between 2007 and 2008.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations says to accommodate an estimated world population of over 9 billion by 2050, food production must increase by 70%.

The APEC forum also renewed its commitment to an early conclusion of the Doha Round of trade liberalisation talks and confirmed the extension of the 2008 APEC summit meeting agreement to refrain from introducing new barriers on investment and trade and export restrictions until 2011.

Under the action plan, member economies were assigned various tasks for ensuring food security and the forum agreed to report progress on the implementation of these tasks to the APEC ministers annually.

Japan assumed the rotating chair of the forum for the first time since 1995 and has been hosting a series of meetings throughout Japan.

APEC, which accounts for about half of the world’s economic output, includes Japan, Australia, China, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, the United States of America and seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations of which PNG is a member.

The outcome of the meeting will be forwarded to the incoming annual APEC leader’s summit conference to be held in November in Yokohama, Japan.

APEC Ministers target growth of SMEs

Issued by the 17^TH APEC Small and Medium Enterprises ministerial meeting

 

Gifu, Japan, 3 October, 2010 – In a joint statement issued today, APEC ministers responsible for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) target the challenges of fostering long-term growth following the global economic crisis.

 Following two-days of discussions, ministers released the statement containing recommendations for leaders to guide the development of policy for SMEs in their respective economies.

 Ministers considered the impact of the global financial crisis on SMEs and the emergency stimulus responses by APEC member economies, concluding that “overall, economic growth of SMEs in the APEC region is back on track”.

 The statement discussed development of SMEs over the next few years and noted that looking forward to 2020, efforts to enhance development should focus on improving their access to global markets and increasing their participation in high-growth sectors, such as in the green, medical and healthcare industries.

 Ministers said that efforts could include the following and agreed to call the first three efforts the “Gifu Initiative”:

·        Supporting SMEs to take advantage of each locality’s domestic and regional resources to develop high value-added products, and to sell to the global marketplace;

·        Promoting exhibitions and trade shows in the region that are open to the Asia-Pacific region’s SMEs;

·        Supporting SMEs to expand and strengthen networking by launching international internship and exchange programmes;

·        Strengthening assistance for human resources development, innovation, business change, productivity improvement, and entrepreneurship; and

·        Developing a coordinated approach between SME- and related agencies to implement measures aimed at improving access to finance, capability building and the legal system.

 

“We, the Small and Medium Enterprises ministers, aim to generate dynamic and diverse SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region, from micro to mid-sized enterprises, in industries that support the basics of everyday life through to those developing and employing the most advanced technologies,” the statement said.

 The statement is a result of the 17^th APEC small and medium enterprises ministerial meeting in Gifu, Japan which was held under the theme ‘Strategy for Reinvigorating Economic Growth with Dual Engine: SME and Asia-Pacific Economy’.

 Ministers recognised that continuing to support the development of SMEs was an important component of APEC’s new growth strategy, which will be formulated by leaders in Yokohama in November.

 The strategy supports “high quality growth” including the attribute of inclusiveness, which aims to spread the benefits to wider sections of the community, and innovation.

Continuing to enhance SMEs is therefore crucial for APEC, given that they account for around 90% of all businesses in the Asia-Pacific region and employ as much as 60 percent of its work force.

 

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To view the statement, go to: http://www.apec.org/apec/ministerial_statements/sectoral_ministerial/small___medium_enterprises/2010_small_and_medium.html

For more information, contact Trudy Harris (65) 98983710 or th@apec.org