21 November 201612:53
2142-21-11-2016
We, the Leaders of APEC, met in Lima under the
theme of Quality Growth and Human Development to
continue working on our common endeavor to support free and open trade and
investment, sustainable economic growth and shared prosperity in the
Asia-Pacific region. Within this vision, in 2016 we have focused our efforts on
the following thematic priorities: Regional Economic Integration and Quality
Growth; Enhancing the Regional Food Market; Towards the Modernization of Micro,
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) in the Asia-Pacific; and Developing
Human Capital.
Eight years after Peru hosted APEC for the first
time, the world economic recovery is progressing, but facing increasingly
far-reaching and interrelated challenges. The confluence of inequality in some
economies and uneven economic growth, as well as environmental degradation and
the risks posed by climate change, affect prospects for sustainable
development, and deepen uncertainty toward the immediate future. In addition,
globalization and its associated integration processes are increasingly being
called into question, contributing to the emergence of protectionist trends.
While these challenges may pose a risk to our
common aspirations and objectives, we recommit our efforts to ensure APEC
maintains its global leadership as a forum that can, through cooperation,
tackle the most pressing problems, and continue to be an incubator of ideas of
the future. In that sense, we remain committed to the implementation of the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as it represents a balanced and
comprehensive multilateral framework for international cooperation. We also
welcome the recent entry into force of the Paris Agreement and commit to its
transparent and effective implementation in order to transition towards a low
carbon, climate resilient economy.
Quality Growth and Human Development
We reaffirm our aspirations towards balanced,
inclusive, sustainable, innovative, and secure growth in the APEC region, as
reflected in the APEC Accord on Innovative Development, Economic Reform and
Growth, and the APEC Strategy for Strengthening Quality Growth by 2020, to
bring greater focus to the importance of pursuing quality growth as envisaged
in the 2010 APEC Growth Strategy.
Stressing the importance of achieving quality
growth, we also pledge to focus our efforts on ensuring that our policies and
strategies contribute in concrete terms to raising people´s quality of life and
enhancing social equity in the region. We therefore recognize that our efforts
to achieve APEC´s objectives and goals must remain focused on improving the
lives of our people.
We recognize the vital importance of continuing
work towards an inclusive education agenda that will enable people of all ages
to meet the challenges of a globalized world. Furthermore, realizing that
equitable access to high-quality education and training will allow our people
to develop skills and competencies from early childhood and throughout their
lifetime, we must focus our efforts on improving the quality, mobility and
access to education including in partnership with employers, and soft skills
development.
We encourage our economies to collaborate on
improving education in the Asia-Pacific region under the principles established
in the APEC Education Strategy. This strategy outlines a path for achieving a
strong and cohesive APEC education community characterized by inclusive and
quality education that supports sustainable economic growth and social
well-being, enhances competencies, accelerates innovation and increases
employability.
Given that full and productive employment for
all population groups is essential for human development in the region, we also
recognize that the economic empowerment of women, youth and persons with
disabilities should be a priority under the APEC agenda for enhancing quality
growth and human development.
In this regard, we commit to strengthen our
efforts to ensure decent work and work life quality for all, especially
socially vulnerable groups, by providing access to quality inclusive education
and vocational training; boosting entrepreneurship; improving social
protection; and enhancing regional cooperation.
We recognize women’s vital contribution to
economic and social development and we commit to strengthen our efforts to
support the mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s empowerment across
APEC’s work, to ensure that women enjoy equal access to quality education and
economic resources. We welcome efforts to support women’s entrepreneurship,
grow women-led SMEs, enhance women’s digital literacy, promote women's career
development, strengthen women and girls' access to science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers and address
health-related barriers to women’s economic participation. We believe that the
development of ICT plays a vitally important role in human development and we
reaffirm our willingness to achieve next-generation broadband by 2020.
Recognizing health as the foundation of economic
prosperity and human development, we highlight the importance of promoting
health systems towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC),
which are resilient, sustainable, accessible and responsive to current and
future needs to foster quality growth and human development. We look forward to
further work on ways to address the fiscal and economic impacts of ill health.
Challenges and opportunities for free trade and
investment in the current global context
We recognize that there has been a slow and
uneven recovery from the economic and financial crisis of 2008, resulting in
lower global economic growth, volatile financial conditions, lower commodity
prices, rising inequalities, employment challenges, and significantly slower
expansion of international trade in recent years.
We remain committed to using all policy tools –
monetary, fiscal and structural – individually and collectively, to strengthen
global demand and address supply constraints. We reaffirm the important role of
mutually-reinforcing policies to buttress our efforts to achieve strong,
sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. We reaffirm our previous
commitments on monetary and exchange rate policies. We will refrain from
competitive devaluation, resist all forms of protectionism and not target our
exchange rates for competitive purposes. We reiterate that excess volatility
and disorderly movements in exchange rates can have adverse implications for
economic and financial stability.
While the complex global economic environment
will continue framing our work, it also represents an opportunity to reiterate
our commitment to build a dynamic, harmonious and open economy in the Asia-Pacific
region featuring innovative development, interconnected growth and shared
interests, that advances employment opportunities for all, by reaffirming free
and open trade and investment, accelerating regional economic integration,
promoting competitive markets, encouraging economic and technical cooperation,
and facilitating a favorable and sustainable business environment.
These overarching principles will continue to
guide us in our common path. At the same time, we acknowledge that economies
need to reach out to all sectors of our societies to better explain the
benefits of trade, investment and open markets, and to ensure that those
benefits are widely distributed.
Building on the WTO’s successful Bali and
Nairobi Ministerial Conferences and recognizing all the elements contained in
the Ministerial Declarations, we commit to continue implementing the Bali and
Nairobi outcomes and advance negotiations on the remaining Doha Development
Agenda issues as a matter of priority. We also note a range of issues of common
interest and importance to today’s economies in the Asia-Pacific region may be
legitimate issues for WTO discussions. Therefore, we instruct our officials to
work with a sense of urgency and solidarity with all WTO members to set the
direction together towards achieving positive, and meaningful results by the
next WTO Ministerial Conference in 2017 and beyond.
We reaffirm our commitment to keep our markets
open and to fight against all forms of protectionism by reaffirming our pledge
against protectionism through a standstill commitment that we agree to extend
until the end of 2020 and to roll back protectionist and trade-distorting
measures, which weaken trade and slow down the progress and recovery of the
international economy.
We welcome the progress made by economies in
notifying their acceptance of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and
support its entry into force at the earliest possible date. We call upon the
remaining APEC economies as well as other WTO members to make their utmost
efforts to submit their instruments of acceptance of the TFA by the end of the
year.
We recognize that WTO consistent plurilateral
trade agreements with broad participation can play an important role in
complementing global liberalization initiatives. In this regard, the ongoing or
already concluded plurilateral agreements such as the Information Technology
Agreement and its expansion, the Trade in Services Agreement, and the
Environmental Goods Agreement, shall be open to all WTO members who share the
objectives of such plurilateral agreements and negotiations for participation.
Furthermore, we also welcome the implementation
of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) expansion and call on those who
have committed to implement by July 1st 2016 to do so as soon
as possible.
APEC Economies participating in the WTO
Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) negotiations reaffirm their aim to redouble
efforts to bridge remaining gaps and conclude an ambitious future oriented EGA
that seeks to eliminate tariffs on a broad range of environmental goods by the
end of 2016, after finding effective ways to address the core concerns of
participants.
We underscore the importance of investment as a
catalyst for economic growth and job creation. We commit to take concrete
measures to provide an enabling environment for investment.
We acknowledge that structural reform is
critical to improving economic efficiency, increasing productivity and
competitiveness, creating jobs and promoting innovative growth in the face of
the slowdown in the global economy. In this regard, we emphasize the importance
of removing those structural and regulatory obstacles that unnecessarily
inhibit cross-border trade, finance and investment, and create
behind-the-border barriers to doing business. We encourage concrete actions by
economies to deepen efforts in line with the Renewed APEC Agenda for Structural
Reform (RAASR). Accordingly, we note the conclusion of RAASR Individual Action
Plans by all member economies and welcome those commitments to important
domestic structural reforms. At the same time, we recognize that structural reforms
can be applied flexibly depending on domestic circumstances and macroeconomic
situation. We also welcome the progress made so far on the Ease of Doing
Business initiative.
We welcome the Strategy for Modernization of
Finance Ministers’ Process and the Strategy for Implementation of the Cebu
Action Plan, which will lay the foundations to ensure concrete outcomes to
facilitate implementation of meaningful reforms in our economies that take into
account their level of development and domestic circumstances.
Following the path established in the Beijing
Roadmap for APEC’s Contribution to the Realization of the Free Trade Area of
the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) in 2014, we reiterate our commitment to the eventual
realization of the FTAAP as a major instrument to further deepen APEC's
regional economic integration agenda. With this vision, we endorse the
Collective Strategic Study on Issues Related to the Realization of FTAAP and
its Executive Summary. Furthermore, we endorse the Recommendations of the Study
as the Lima Declaration on FTAAP (annexed to this Declaration).
We commend APEC officials for their hard work on
finalizing the Collective Strategic Study. We instruct officials to implement
the Lima Declaration on FTAAP, in particular to develop, and implement work
programs towards the realization of the FTAAP. We look forward to regular
progress reports on implementation of these work programs and APEC’s collective
readiness to build capacity to realize the FTAAP. Furthermore, based on the
Study and other APEC work as possible references, we instruct officials to
consider next steps that can be taken towards the eventual realization of an
FTAAP.
We recognize the Bogor Goals of free and open
trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region as one of the most important
milestones in the history of APEC, which inspires member economies in their
pursuit of sustainable development and equitable growth. We acknowledge that
APEC member economies have made substantial progress in many areas related to
the Bogor Goals, including via lower applied tariffs, more Regional Trade
Agreements/Free Trade Agreements (RTA/FTAs), increased openness to foreign
trade and investment, and improved trade and investment facilitation. At the
same time, we recognize that more work needs to be done to improve the existing
trade and investment conditions, as progress has been uneven across the region.
We welcome, therefore, the Second-term Review of
Economies’ Progress towards the Bogor Goals and instruct officials to pursue
work in those areas where progress has been uneven, including non-tariff
measures, the slowdown in trade within APEC, and unemployment.
Four years before the target of the Bogor Goals
and with major developments taking place both within and outside APEC, we
consider it pertinent to start a process of reflection on an APEC post-2020
vision. Therefore, we commend Peru’s initiative to start in 2016 a series of
high-level dialogues on APEC Toward 2020 and Beyond and instruct our officials
to continue this process on a yearly basis until 2020.
We acknowledge that the services sector is a
major contributor to productivity and growth within APEC. Improved
competitiveness in services as well as growth in services trade through an open
and predictable environment for access to services is one of the key factors
for APEC to boost its economic growth. We also recognize that we need to
address barriers that inhibit our businesses from competing or trading in
services markets. We therefore endorse the APEC Services Competitiveness
Roadmap (annexed to this Declaration) and instruct officials to monitor and
evaluate progress in implementing the Roadmap, taking concrete actions and
pursuing mutually agreed targets that will facilitate services trade and
investment and enhance the competitiveness of the services sector, while
addressing factors constraining the growth of trade as well as considering the
differences in economic and social circumstances across APEC economies.
We recognize that innovation is a key driver of
quality growth. In this regard, we encourage efforts to identify new growth
engines, and will embrace the opportunities brought forth by sectors such as
the Internet and Digital Economy.
We welcome the endorsement of the next steps to
advance our work on digital trade and the progress made in Internet Economy
cooperation. We instruct officials to continue to advance work in accordance
with the agreed work plan endorsed by Ministers. We also welcome APEC
economies’ initiatives and leadership to explore new areas of potential
economic growth in the area of digital trade and related issues, such as those
identified by Ministers.
We recall the APEC Leaders 2011 Honolulu
Declaration and recognize the importance of implementing the APEC Cross-Border
Privacy Rules (CBPR) System, a voluntary mechanism whose participants seek to
increase the number of economies, companies, and accountability agents that
participate in the CBPR System.
We will collaborate to unleash the potential of
the digital economy and strongly support an accessible, open, interoperable,
reliable and secure ICT environment as an essential foundation for economic
growth and prosperity. We will continue to promote policy and regulatory
environment to ensure ICT security, data and privacy protection by developing
interoperable and flexible frameworks. We also affirm that economies should not
conduct or support ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property or other
confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive
advantages to companies and commercial sectors. We also affirm the importance
of promoting competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation through effective
and comprehensive measures, including balanced intellectual property (IP)
systems and capacity-building.
We recognize that micro, small and medium-sized
enterprises (MSMEs) are an essential component for economies to achieve quality
growth and prosperity. As sources of innovation and employment, MSMEs are also
well placed to promote entrepreneurship, to benefit from structural reform and
to advance sustainability in our economies, maximizing the impact of policies,
strategies and best practices. Strengthening of MSMEs will imply concrete
progress in increasing their innovation capacities and competitiveness,
including intellectual property rights commercialization, work towards
guaranteeing access to financial means and capacity building, enhancing their
participation in the internet and digital economy and through electronic
commerce, reducing the technological gap, strengthening ethical business practices
to support MSMEs’ growth and cross border trade, progressively inducing a shift
into a more sustainable, eco-friendly and green production, and supporting
their internationalization including through the means of ICT.
We welcome the Supporting Industry Initiative
and look forward to its implementation in 2017. We recognize the potential of
greening MSMEs for sustainable development in APEC and encourage officials to
carry out additional work on this topic next year.
We resolve to advance Global Value Chains (GVCs)
development, Supply Chain Connectivity, and Supply Chain Resiliency. We commend
the solid progress towards the completion of the APEC Trade in Value-Added
(TiVA) Database by 2018. We welcome the Report on APEC Developing Economies’
Better Participation in GVCs and encourage further efforts to enable better
participation, greater value added and upward mobility of developing economies
and MSMEs in GVCs. We recognize the value of using new technologies to achieve
greater efficiencies, resilience and cooperation in supply chain connectivity
and encourage efforts to explore current and future initiatives toward this end
as identified by Ministers.
We also endorse Phase Two of the Supply Chain
Framework Action Plan (SCFAP) 2017-2020 and welcome the implementation of the
plan next year to continue efforts to enhance trade facilitation and supply
chain connectivity in the APEC region.
We recognize that energy access and energy
security are critical to the shared prosperity and future of the region. We also
underline the importance of stable and transparent world energy markets. We
reaffirm our readiness to further energy cooperation, including areas such as
renewable energy sectors and energy efficiency to create necessary conditions
for trade, investment and economic growth, ensuring that all the economies of
the region have access to energy.
We reaffirm our aspirational goals to reduce
aggregate energy intensity by 45 percent by 2035 and double renewable energy in
the regional energy mix by 2030. We reaffirm our commitment to rationalize and
phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, welcome ongoing peer review and
capacity building activities, and encourage further efforts to facilitate
subsidy reform.
Towards real and functional connectivity in the region
We recognize that strengthened connectivity will
contribute to opening up new sources of economic growth, fostering inclusive
and interconnected development, advancing regional economic integration and
bringing APEC economies closer as a community. In this regard, we note with
appreciation that significant work has already been done by various APEC fora
and working groups in advancing connectivity in the region, including providing
support for enhancing sub-regional connectivity. However, challenges still
remain.
We reaffirm, therefore, our commitment to the
overarching goal of a seamlessly and comprehensively connected and integrated
Asia-Pacific by 2025, express our appreciation for the efforts and
accomplishments of APEC members in implementing the APEC Connectivity Blueprint
2015-2025, and encourage the use of policy dialogues noted in the Blueprint to
exchange best practices and information on relevant topics.
We reiterate the importance of people-to-people
connectivity and remain committed to its improvement through, inter alia,
further development of tourism, cultural exchange, mobility of business people,
cross-border education and travel facilitation.
We affirm our commitment to promote investment
with a focus on infrastructure in terms of both quantity and quality. We
reiterate the importance of quality infrastructure for sustainable economic
growth. Recognizing the important elements to realize quality infrastructure
identified in APEC Connectivity Blueprint 2015-2025 and its subsequent works,
we are committed to translate this concept into actions including in ICT,
energy and transport.
We welcome progress and look forward to continue
exploring infrastructure financing including through mobilizing private sector
resources and public-private partnerships (PPP). We encourage further work to
pursue the quality improvement of investment opportunities. We are committed to
enhancing the synergy and cooperation among various infrastructure connectivity
programs in the region, and welcome the Collaboration Action Plan between APEC
Member Economies and the Global Infrastructure Hub. We recognize the lack of
effective solid waste management infrastructure imposes great socio-economic
and environmental costs, and we encourage further work on this topic.
We welcome economies’ initiatives to achieve
comprehensive regional connectivity, which are being jointly built through
consultation to meet the interests of all. We encourage further implementation
of these initiatives with a view to promoting policy coordination, facilities
connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds
in the region, and encourage further collaboration among these initiatives in
order to promote regional economic integration and the common development of
the Asia-Pacific region.
Food security, climate change and access to
water
We recognize that APEC can contribute to address
challenges to food security while preserving natural resources by taking steps
to further promote sustainable agriculture, food, forest management, fisheries
and aquaculture, enhance food markets, integrate food producers into domestic
and global food supply and value chains, reduce food loss and waste, address
chokepoints arising from infrastructure gaps, and burdensome and unnecessarily
restrictive trade measures, as stated in the Piura Declaration on APEC Food
Security, and reinforce capacity building including by facilitating innovation
such as utilizing ICT and relevant technologies. We encourage efforts to
promote agricultural sustainable development in the APEC Region.
We look forward to seeing this work progress in
a manner that complements sustainable economic development and international
trade in the APEC region. APEC work to increase economic integration will
contribute to increased safe food availability through international trade with
science-based regulations and WTO-recognized international food-related
standards.
Climate change is one of the major challenges
for food production and food security. We commit to enhance our cooperation on
implementing policies to address the relationship between food security and
climate change in ways that respect varying conditions in each economy and
welcome the APEC Program on Food Security and Climate Change. We also commit to
intensify our efforts to mitigate impacts of drought, flood and climate-related
disasters on food production and food security.
We recognize that water is a key driver of
agricultural development and a basic element for socio-economic development
across the APEC region. Thus we encourage economies to share best practices in
water management to ensure water availability and increase water use
efficiency, considering multi-sectoral and multi-level perspectives. We will
foster APEC cooperation for the sustainable use and integrated management of
water resources.
Acknowledging the importance of socio-economic
factors underlying food security in rural-urban communities and vulnerable
groups, we aim to work towards a comprehensive approach towards rural-urban
development. We recognize the important implications of urbanization and diet
diversification in the APEC region and support APEC efforts to explore new
integrated approaches building upon the experiences and best practices shared
among APEC economies to promoting food security and economic growth that
mutually benefit urban and rural areas, including the newly developed Strategic
Framework on Rural-Urban Development to Strengthen Food Security and Quality
Growth in APEC. We also note the direct relevance of a number of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for food security and poverty eradication.
In supporting the Sustainable Development Goals we remain committed to
increasing our efforts to combat illicit wildlife trafficking.
Looking forward
To achieve sustainable growth in the
Asia-Pacific region we must continue working with a renewed sense of urgency
and through Asia-Pacific partnership featuring mutual respect and trust,
inclusiveness and win-win cooperation in implementing our commitments and
achieving our goals.
We call for effective economic, financial and
social inclusion of women, elderly, youth and rural communities as well as
disadvantaged or vulnerable groups such as Indigenous peoples and persons with
disabilities.
We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms
and manifestations. We recognize the serious threat that terrorism poses to our
fundamental values that underpin our free and open economies. We encourage
economies to continue to take actions and share best practices in the four
cross-cutting areas of APEC’s Consolidated Counter Terrorism and Secure Trade
Strategy.
We welcome the Lima ACT Statement on Fighting
Corruption and encourage all economies to implement critical anti-corruption
actions, with a specific focus on bribery of domestic and foreign public
officials, and with the effective participation of all relevant stakeholders,
including through the APEC Anti-Corruption Authorities and Law Enforcement
Agencies (ACT-NET).
We endorse the 2016 APEC Joint Ministerial
Statement and commend the work of our Ministers and officials as reflected in
the results of the Sectoral Ministerial Meetings, High-Level Policy Dialogues,
the Finance Ministers’ Process, the Committees and Working Groups of the Senior
Officials Meeting, and all related mechanisms. We instruct our Ministers and
officials to continue their work, including implementation of the recommendations,
work programs, initiatives and action plans of the resulting documents from the
2016 Sectoral Ministerial Meetings and High-Level Policy Dialogues, bearing in
mind the vision contained in this Declaration, as well as our previous
meetings.
We welcome the contributions of the APEC
Business Advisory Council (ABAC) to our work as well as from the Pacific
Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), international and regional organizations,
the private sector, local government executives, and academia and other
relevant stakeholders.
Recognizing that continuity of our agenda is key
to APEC's relevance, we thank Peru for its leadership this year as it has built
on the vision and work of the previous APEC hosts.
We look forward to meeting again in Viet Nam in
2017.
Annex A: Lima Declaration on FTAAP
Recommendations
1. Goals and Principles
·
We
reaffirm our commitment to advance the process in a comprehensive and
systematic manner towards the eventual realization of the FTAAP as a major
instrument to further APEC’s regional economic integration agenda;
·
We
reaffirm that APEC’s core objective will be to attain the Bogor Goals by 2020,
and that efforts in support of the realization of the FTAAP will serve as a
driving force to further advance regional economic integration;
·
We
reaffirm that the FTAAP will be realized outside of APEC, parallel with the
APEC process;
·
We
reaffirm that the eventual FTAAP should do more than achieve liberalization in
its narrow sense; it should be high quality and comprehensive, and incorporate
and address ‘next generation’ trade and investment issues;
·
We
recognize that APEC has a critical role to play in shaping and nurturing
regional economic integration, upholding the principles of openness,
inclusiveness and cooperation under a win-win spirit, promoting profound
economic restructuring, deepening and strengthening regional economic
integration, and give greater impetus to the sustainable development of the
Asia-Pacific. In this sense, APEC encourages unilateral economic reforms
and the conclusion of comprehensive and high quality RTAs/FTAs.
2. Completing and Enhancing the Possible
Pathways
·
We
recognize that regional and bilateral trade agreements (RTAs/FTAs) have
enhanced regional economic integration, while at the same time APEC members’
different stages of development, and RTAs/FTAs with various levels of
liberalization and coverage may pose challenges to achieving full regional
integration. Thus, we reaffirm our commitment that the FTAAP should be built
upon ongoing regional undertakings, and through possible pathways including the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP). We welcome other regional integration undertakings to make
meaningful contributions to the eventual realization of the FTAAP;
·
We
encourage that all regional undertakings, including TPP and RCEP, remain open,
transparent and inclusive and draw on each other so as to jointly contribute to
the trade and investment liberalization and facilitation in the region and the
eventual realization of the FTAAP;
·
We
also reaffirm our vision contained in the Pathways to FTAAP. In this
connection, we note recent developments on RTAs/FTAs in the region and the
progress of the possible pathways to the FTAAP, including efforts by TPP
signatories to complete their domestic processes and efforts by RCEP parties to
accelerate towards the completion of the negotiations to achieve a modern,
comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial agreement.
·
We
encourage the progress of the FTAAP pathways and progress of implementation of
the initiatives identified in this document to be reported to the CTI as
appropriate including under the Information Sharing Mechanism. Further, this
report may be included in the CTI/SOM Report to Ministers and/or AELM.
·
To
maintain momentum and focus work towards an eventual FTAAP, APEC economies will
examine, by no later than 2020, the contribution of current Pathways to the
realization of the FTAAP. The examination will identify specific areas of
work that could be done to further promote the regional free and open trade and
investment and that would support advancement toward an eventual FTAAP. In
addition, this examination, and the work programs noted below, will help APEC
determine what areas remain the most challenging in meeting regional economic
integration goals and an eventual FTAAP. Following the examination, all
APEC economies may engage in a collective discussion on what role APEC can play
toward addressing these challenges in a manner that is inclusive, balanced, and
beneficial to all economies and consider next steps APEC can take towards the
eventual realization of an FTAAP.
3. Continuing APEC’s Role as an Incubator and
Strengthening Existing APEC Initiatives that support FTAAP Objectives
·
We
commit that APEC should continue to be an important contributor to advancing
towards the eventual realization of an FTAAP. APEC plays a key role as an
incubator of issues related to the FTAAP by providing leadership, intellectual
inputs and capacity building including but not limited to the APEC Information
Sharing Mechanism on RTAs/FTAs; the Action Plan Framework of the 2nd Capacity
Building Needs Initiative (CBNI); and advancing sectoral initiatives, and
promoting Policy Coordination/Coherence, and conducting Industry/Sector
Dialogue, etc., so as to facilitate the eventual realization of the FTAAP.
·
We
agree that APEC should continue to identify and address next generation trade
and investment issues and advance new initiatives in areas identified by APEC
economies as critical for achieving an eventual FTAAP. Therefore, we
encourage officials, through the Committee on Trade and Investment and its
sub-fora to advance potential areas of work arising from this Study by
consensus, including in areas already under consideration as either identified
or potential next generation trade and investment issues;
·
We
agree that APEC should advance Structural Reform with a view toward improving
the business environment. In line with the Ease of Doing Business Action Plan,
APEC should continue to identify ways to improve the regulatory climate for
starting a business, obtaining permits, accessing credit, trading across
borders, and enforcing contracts, among others;
·
We
agree that APEC should increase efforts to improve trade facilitation. APEC has
been a leader in developing capacity building programs designed to help economies
implement obligations under the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).
APEC should continue to advance capacity building projects in this area.
4. New Initiatives to Advance Regional Economic
Integration
·
The
Collective Strategic Study identified a number of remaining challenges, gaps
and areas of divergence among APEC economies, including in RTAs/FTAs. The
discussion started in the Study should continue, including on potential
elements to be addressed in the FTAAP and additional work in support of the
eventual realization of the FTAAP. APEC´s work should focus on bridging these
gaps in order to ensure APEC economies are continuing along a pathway towards
productive regional economic integration.
·
APEC
will focus work to address areas of divergence and convergence in RTA/FTA
practice, including on the possible pathways for the FTAAP, and in the areas
identified in the Collective Strategic Study, while also implementing capacity
building programs to increase understanding of these agreements and members'
capacity to participate in high quality, comprehensive and ambitious free trade
agreements.
·
As
the next step in advancing the Beijing Roadmap, we instruct officials to
undertake a stock take as to how next generation trade and investment issues
are dealt with in existing FTAs/RTAs in the APEC region and other regions and
in the WTO;
·
We
further instruct officials to use the stock take to develop dedicated
initiatives, including through capacity building, to close the gaps between
different treatment of these issues by economies as revealed by the stock
take. Initiatives should be developed within the relevant APEC fora and
included in each forum’s work plan on an annual basis from 2018 onwards;
·
We
instruct Officials to continue to work on measures affecting trade and
investment as identified in the Study that support the achievement of the Bogor
Goals, and to advance the vision for the eventual realization of the FTAAP. To
achieve these goals, APEC could embark on work programs to build consensus and
capacity for economies in the following areas including, but not limited to:
o
On
tariffs, the work program should focus on lowering remaining tariffs and
examining market access commitments under the identified pathways to find areas
of convergence and divergence.
o
On
NTMs, the work program could prioritize collaboration with ABAC, based on their
recommendations to Leaders in 2015, to identify and address NTMs affecting
trade and aid economies’ understanding of NTMs and their potential impacts.
o
On
services, the work program should support the implementation of the APEC
Services Competitiveness Roadmap as a way to spur economic growth and improve
services competitiveness in individual APEC economies and the APEC region.
o
On
investment, the focus should be to help economies clearly identify the areas of
convergence in investment practice and exchange experiences on the negotiation
and implementation of IIAs.
o
On
Rules of Origin (ROO), the work program should address best practices in
customs origin procedures to facilitate economies’ progress towards existing
APEC goals on the simplification of ROO.
·
To
support a balanced and inclusive discussion on these issues, we instruct
officials to focus on addressing the recommendations in this document through
the Committee on Trade and Investment and its sub-fora, and encourage
participation of the private sector and other stakeholders in these discussions
including through Trade Policy Dialogues.
5. Strengthening Consultation with Stakeholders
·
APEC
should increase engagement with stakeholders in the region, including ABAC and
PECC, in its efforts to support the realization of the FTAAP.
6. Reporting on Progress
·
We
instruct officials to undertake work on the recommendations through the Committee
on Trade and Investment and to report back to Leaders on progress towards the
realization of the FTAAP, particularly with regard to the new initiatives
identified in this document. The reporting should be done separately but
in parallel with the Bogor Goals reporting milestones which occur in 2018 and
2020.
Annex B: APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap
(2016-2025)
In 2015, we, the Leaders of APEC, called for the
development of a strategic and long-term Services Competitiveness Roadmap with
actions and mutually agreed targets to be achieved by 2025. We now endorse this
APEC Services Competiveness Roadmap (2016 – 2025), and instruct Senior
Officials to undertake the commitments outlined here and in greater detail in
the accompanying Implementation Plan.
We recognise the important role that services
will play in the growth of our region over the coming decade. New technologies
are increasing our ability to trade in services while creating platforms that
allow many service providers, such as women and small businesses, to
participate in this trade. Services are also a growing and dynamic component of
global value chains. Together these developments have the potential to
significantly increase productivity levels within our economies.
We also recognise that we need to address
barriers that inhibit our businesses from competing or trading in services
markets and undertake concrete actions that will facilitate services trade and
investment and enhance the competitiveness of the services sector. We will seek
to ensure that regulations promote fair competition and the adoption of new
technologies.
Targets
To increase APEC competitiveness in the services
sector by 2025 we set the following targets:
·
Ensuring
an open and predictable environment for access to services markets by
progressively reducing restrictions to services trade and investment;
·
Increasing
the share (%) of services exports from APEC economies in the total world
services exports so that it exceeds the current share in world services exports
by 2025[1];
·
Increasing
trade in services in the APEC region so that, by 2025, the compound average
annual growth rate exceeds the historic average of 6.8 per cent[2] and
the share (%) of value-added of the services sector in the total GDP of the
APEC region exceeds the global average level by 2025.
Meeting these targets will require APEC to
develop some of the most dynamic and efficient services markets in the world.
APEC-wide action, including enhanced levels of cohesion within APEC and
collaboration between APEC members, is crucial. We also commit to improving
services-related statistics to help measure progress and inform
decision-making, including establishing an APEC index on the services
regulatory environment by 2020.
We recognise the differences in economic and
social circumstances across APEC economies and are determined to cooperate in
advancing economy-specific actions, through policy dialogue and capacity
building for developing economies.
Enabling Factors
Developing and sustaining competitive services
sectors requires a range of enabling factors. We commit to putting in place the
best possible enabling environment for services competitiveness both at an
APEC-wide and individual economy basis, including by undertaking capacity
building activities, as needed. These
steps will include:
·
promoting
good regulatory practices, international regulatory cooperation and sound
competition policy frameworks and institutions;
·
ensuring
openness of services markets by extending APEC’s overall standstill commitment
and rolling back protectionist and trade distorting measures on trade in
services;
·
ensuring
an adequate supply of skills in a rapidly changing economy, helping workers
adjust to change and providing for increased participation in the workforce by
such groups as women, youth, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and
indigenous businesses;
·
fostering
dynamic, competitive and effective telecommunications, innovation and
information and communication technologies (ICT) policies;
·
facilitating
effective financial markets, including through the use of new technologies to
promote greater inclusion in financial markets; and
·
improving
people-to-people, physical and institutional connectivity.
APEC-wide Action
Pursuing these enabling factors through
APEC-wide action can help achieve the targets and spur the trade and investment
necessary to improve the competitiveness of the services sector across APEC
economies. APEC, as the premier regional economic cooperation forum, is
well-placed to drive this action, in many cases building on existing or planned
work in services.
We endorse the following APEC-wide actions:
·
Enhancing global
value chains, including increased participation of MSMEs and women, under
the agreed Strategic Blueprint for Promoting Global Value Chains Development
and Cooperation.
·
Supporting cross-border
mobility for professionals, building on initiatives such as the APEC
Architects and Engineers Registers to facilitate mutual recognition
arrangements.
·
Enhancing flexibility
for business visitors, building on initiatives such as the APEC Business
Travel Card.
·
Implementation
of the Renewed APEC Agenda on Structural Reform, including
progressing the 2016 APEC Economic Policy Report on Structural Reform and
Services.
·
Supporting
liberalization, facilitation and cooperation of environmental services,
under the agreed Environmental Services Action Plan.
·
Progressive
liberalization and facilitation of manufacturing-related services,
under the agreed Manufacturing Related Services Action Plan.
·
Supporting cooperation
in the education sector including promoting internship schemes,
overseas student exchange programs, and collaborative policy studies, as well
as, in accordance with domestic education systems, information sharing
pertinent to economies’ education standards, qualifications and credit systems
and measures to explore mutual recognition (learning from measures such as the
ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework).
·
Collaboration
in responding to the rapid developments in internet-based technology to
promote a regulatory approach that provides appropriate prudential oversight,
legitimate consumer and security protections while enabling the flow of
trade-related data in the context of an increasingly digitalized world.
·
Supporting cross-border
provision of certain financial services, including through financial
inclusion initiatives and engagement by interested economies in the Asia Region
Funds Passport initiative.
·
Supporting
APEC’s work on developing air, maritime and land transportation, as
well as ICT infrastructure, in line with the APEC Connectivity
Blueprint 2015-2025.
·
Supporting
APEC’s work on developing the travel and tourism sector for
sustainable and inclusive growth, building on the work of the APEC Tourism
Strategic Plan.
·
Developing
a set of good practice principles on domestic regulations in
the services sector.
·
Development
of services-related statistics to measure and support
implementation of the Roadmap and improve tracking of services trade and
investment more broadly.
In addition we note potential further APEC-wide
actions that will be subject to further work:
·
Progressive
facilitation of services to improve the regional food system to
ensure access to safe, high quality food supplies across the Asia-Pacific.[3]
Individual Economy Action
Meeting the targets and enabling factors set out
in this Roadmap will require significant unilateral action on the part of
individual economies to implement structural reform in individual services
sectors, as well as across the economy as a whole. Given the importance of
unilateral reform, we encourage economies to implement unilateral reforms aimed
at further improving the services sector, as part of their structural reform
action plans under the Renewed APEC Agenda for Structural Reform (RAASR). This
commitment will take into account the circumstances of individual economies
such as level of development, readiness and appropriate timing. Such measures
should seek to have a high positive impact, both within individual economies
and across APEC as a whole.
To support the process of unilateral reform, we
agree that APEC will facilitate a process of peer learning and capacity
building. The process will provide APEC economies with the tools and
information necessary to undertake unilateral reforms on a voluntary basis.
Implementation
We agree that this Roadmap and associated
Implementation Plan should be seen as living documents. Additional APEC-wide
actions can be agreed at any time in order to achieve its objectives.
APEC will manage a program of capacity building
for interested developing economies that request support with implementation of
the Roadmap at both the APEC-wide and individual economy level. Funding for
capacity building can be sought from relevant existing APEC funds (including
the RAASR Sub-fund). Additional funding from economies for capacity building
will be welcomed.
APEC will also facilitate a process of peer
learning. Economies interested in implementing reforms will be encouraged to
seek peer support from other economies with relevant experience and their best
practices.
APEC will facilitate improved measurement of
trade and investment in services both to support implementation of the Roadmap
and to improve the collective understanding of key issues. A particular
priority will be the development of an APEC index to measure the services
regulatory environment in APEC economies, taking into account the indices
already developed by other fora such as the OECD and World Bank.
Senior Officials will have overall
responsibility for monitoring and evaluating progress under the Roadmap. Senior
Officials will report periodically to Ministers on progress, and seek further
guidance, as appropriate, from Ministers to move forward on additional actions
during implementation of the Roadmap. We commend the key role that business
organizations have played in the development of the Roadmap, particularly the APEC
Business Advisory Council, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and the
Asia-Pacific Services Coalition. We encourage further collaboration with
organizations engaged in implementation and monitoring progress of the Roadmap.
We agree to a mid-term review in 2021 with a
view to assessing what individual and APEC-wide actions will be required to
complete the objectives by 2025.
Source: official site of the President of Russia www.kremlin.ru
[1] In
2014, APEC’s share of total world services exports was 38.38 per cent.
[2] WTO
Statistics Database
[3] subject
to further consideration by the CTI and the APEC Policy Partnership on Food
Security
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