Chen Ho
Introduction
The APEC Study Centers throughout the APEC region have been
meeting with each other every year. This year, the APEC Study Centers
Consortium Conference was held in Boracay Island, Philippines on May
12-13, 2015. The main hosts of the Conference were the Philippine Institute
for Development Studies (PIDS) and the Philippine APEC Study Center
Network (PASCN).
Main Points of the Sessions
The Conference primarily consisted of six sessions. In Session 1, the
focus was on "Pathways to FTAAP." The participants agreed that APEC
should provide the strongest support for realizing the FTAAP. Specifically,
APEC should serve as the platform for communication, exchange of
best practices, and capacity building. In addition, APEC should maintain
its support for the principle of open regionalism and the World Trade
Organization. Another important point was that the participants believed that
in any pathway to FTAAP, the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
should be emphasized and that concrete actions to advance SMEs should be developed (PIDS 2015). Most importantly, APEC should ensure that all
APEC members can become members of the FTAAP. The reason was that the
FTAAP was a product of APEC and APEC members had reached consensus
to achieve the FTAAP. The economic benefits to APEC would be substantial
when all APEC members could participate in the comprehensive FTAAP.
In Session 2, the main topic of discussion was "Connectivity through
Services." The main point was that efficiency in services had increasingly
been associated with higher labor productivity and competitiveness in
manufacturing. Moreover, services had been recognized as the facilitator of
global value chains and logistics chain in particular. The main challenge was
that the services sector continued to be highly restrictive in many parts of the
world as well as the APEC region. Furthermore, the difficulty of changing
domestic regulations had led to the reluctance of economies to liberalize their
services sector. It is suggested that economies should promote knowledge
sharing and the development of a knowledge community for promoting
regulatory reforms (PIDS 2015).
Session 3 was about "Trade and Investment Patterns and Supply Chain
Connectivity." It was mentioned that the extent of gains from regional
integration would depend greatly on the volume and quality of trade and
investment patterns, infrastructure, and connectivity in the region. The
experiences of Thailand and Viet Nam indicated that factors such as real
interest rate, degree of openness, and exchange rate could significantly affect
and explain foreign direct investment (FDI) trends and patterns. Another
important point was that policies that promoted investments and lowered
trade transaction costs were considered crucial to FDI inflows (PIDS 2015).
With regard to Session 4, the emphasis was on "Fostering SMEs'
Participation in the Regional and Global Economy." It was related that SMEs
could be a major driver for economic growth. SMEs had contributed by creating a stable economy given their flexibility and capacity to easily absorb
both skilled and unskilled labor. The viability of SMEs is important for
developing competitive and efficient markets. Presently, SMEs had faced the
greatest difficulty in borrowing money from banks. The reason was that most
SMEs did not have credit data and the perceived risks in lending to SMEs. A
suggestion was made that stronger financial cooperation must be advanced
and a credit rating system for SMEs should be developed. In addition, with
trade being integrated by production and supply chains, natural disasters can
cause serious problems for SMEs. It was estimated that only 25 percent of
SMEs had re-opened following natural disasters. APEC should enhance the
resilience of SMEs (PIDS 2015).
Session 5 was about "Investing in Human Capital Development." It
was mentioned that education, training, and human resource development
could raise the output and productivity of workers. However, several issues
continued to be important, such as developing 21st century workforce,
aligning education and training to industry needs, and strengthening the
productivity of SMEs through skills training. Another suggestion was that it
would be necessary to create an environment that would encourage academic
and technical exchanges. APEC economies could send at least five percent
of the students enrolled in their leading universities to universities in other
APEC economies to stimulate cross-border education. It was also suggested
that an APEC Qualification Framework could be created. The Framework
would function as a standard for comparing the training, qualifications, skills,
and competencies of various semi-skilled workers (PIDS 2015).
The focus of Session 6 was on "Building Sustainable and Resilient
Communities." With regard to climate change, it was suggested that
there was the need to enhance the supervision of change by adopting an
integrated approach, given the wide-ranging impacts of climate change. Intersectoral and inter-agency collaboration would be necessary and further
multidisciplinary research to understand climate change would be needed.
Moreover, fiscal risks arising from natural disasters were a concern shared
by most APEC member-economies. Individual governments often shoulder
a large part of the cost of disasters, particularly in developing economies. A
suggestion was the promotion of insurance and other risk-sharing schemes.
In addition, APEC could contribute to the mitigation of the adverse effects of
environmental degradation. Since these were cross-border issues, solutions
must be derived through international cooperation. A suggestion was that
APEC could liberalize a number of environmental goods in the APEC list,
so as to contribute to global efforts to foster sustainable development (PIDS
2015).
Comments and Suggestions
The annual APEC Study Centers Consortium Conference has been an
important event for the Centers to gather together and discuss major APEC
issues for that year from the perspective of researchers. From the Conference,
valuable suggestions have been presented that could be further developed.
In order to enhance the linkage between APEC and the APEC Study Centers
as well as to strengthen the linkage among the APEC Study Centers, it is
suggested that APEC provides funding for one research project each year
to the APEC Study Centers. The APEC Study Centers would choose the
topics for research, so as to ensure that the APEC Study Center are able to
undertake outstanding research.
It is also suggested that the APEC fora and the APEC Study Centers
could collaborate on examining APEC issues. This means that the APEC
fora could request comments and suggestions from interested APEC Study Centers. In doing so, the APEC fora would have access to good quality
research. The APEC Study Centers would enhance their knowledge of APEC
issues and the views of the APEC fora.
Reference
PIDS. 2015. "Summary Report of the APEC Study Centers Consortium
Conference 2015." Manila: PIDS.
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