Business leaders to prepare APEC free-trade blueprint
Business leaders to prepare APEC free-trade blueprint
SINGAPORE (AFP): Asia-Pacific business leaders are to meet in Hawaii next week to launch work on a blueprint to hasten trade and investment liberalization in the region, officials said here yesterday.
The blueprint would incorporate strategies to open up businesses in designated areas such as infrastructure, small and medium enterprises and human resources development, and finance and investment.
The leaders from the newly-established business advisory council of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum would also devise measures such as customs procedures to quicken the flow of cross-border business at their Honolulu meeting on Aug. 17-to-18, officials said.
The APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) was inaugurated in Manila in June to advise on the implementation of the so-called action agenda to free up trade and investment by 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing economies within APEC.
The agenda was adopted by APEC leaders at their summit in Osaka last November when they also endorsed the setting up of ABAC as a permanent business advisory forum to make the seven- year-old APEC more relevant to business.
"This is a meeting of very senior level business leaders who expect to come up with some hard-hitting recommendations," Dough Ryan, ABAC coordinator at the Singapore-based APEC secretariat, told AFP.
They could seek greater business sector participation in infrastructure development projects, issuance of an APEC-wide visa to facilitate the movement of business persons and a bigger role for small and medium enterprises to spur economic growth in the region.
Ryan said ABAC's recommendations would be compiled in a report to be considered by the APEC leaders at their summit in Manila in November.
"The Hawaii meeting will give ABAC members the opportunity to discuss in depth the key issues they intend to raise when they meet with APEC economic leaders in November," he said.
ABAC is now chaired by Roberto Romulo, chairman of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, and co-chaired by Minoru Murofushi, president of Itochu Corp. of Japan, and Dorothy Riddle, president of Service Growth Consultants Inc. of Canada.
At their first meeting, the business leaders had decided to focus on five areas, including infrastructure, finance and investment, small and medium enterprises and human resources development, and the facilitation of cross-border flows.
"The fifth area is how the sense of community in the Asia- Pacific region can be deepened -- how involvement in the APEC process can be broadened and how awareness of APEC can be expanded -- so that it can be a reality to the broader communities within APEC," a forum statement said.
APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.