Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders have agreed to develop starting next year a long-term roadmap to boost the competitiveness of the services sector in order to further promote inclusive growth.
The leaders concluded their two-day meeting in Manila on November 19 with the adoption of the APEC Services Cooperation Framework (ASCF) under the 23rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration, in which they agreed to craft an APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap (ASCR) beginning 2016 that will lay down a concerted set of actions and targets for the services sector to be achieved by 2025.
The drafting of the roadmap will involve a discussion of its elements, followed by deliberations on agreed actions and targets. APEC leaders, in the ASCF, said they recognize the important role of services in realizing inclusive growth in the region. The services sector, which includes transportation, accounts for a dominant share of the economy of Asia-Pacific members, representing 66% of regional gross domestic product.
The roadmap will, among others, build on APEC’s work on services; strengthen APEC cross-fora dialogues and collaborations; pursue public-private dialogues with the APEC Business Advisory Council, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, and other stakeholders; and engage multiple stakeholders through the APEC Virtual Knowledge Center on Services—a virtual knowledge-sharing platform on services-related policies and programs of APEC.
The ASCR also aims to foster the exchange of good regulatory practices and promote effective competition policy. Moreover, it will seek better ways to produce services-related statistics, provide capacity building to increase the number of APEC economies that have indices for measuring the regulatory environment in services, and explore the development of an APEC index similar to those maintained by other fora such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The ASCR will also order economies to regularly organize, through working groups and committees, discussion fora among services regulators; officials responsible for trade, investment, and competition policies; and the private sector.
The roadmap will also leverage partnerships with regional and global bodies such as the World Trade Organization, United Nations Bodies, International Trade Center, OECD, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and World Bank to implement the roadmap, avoid duplication, and ensure coherence with other initiatives.
The leaders expect the ASCR to increase the services value-adding capacity of APEC economies and cultivate globally competitive services sectors in Asia-Pacific countries.
The roadmap also targets the expansion of trade and investment in services by improving physical, institutional, and people-to-people connectivity, as well as by enhancing global value chain participation of all businesses, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises.
Wider access for APEC and its people to more efficient and greater variety of services and job creation and economic growth, while promoting social inclusion and human development, is also part of the goals of the roadmap.
Lastly, ASCR will promote measures in pursuit of APEC leaders’ strategy for inclusive, innovative, and sustainable growth.
The leaders also urge regional ministers and senior officials to mainstream the ASCF into their long-term APEC work plan, particularly through the Group on Services (GOS), and to develop a mechanism for implementing the ASCF beginning 2016.
According to National Economic and Development Authority deputy director general Dr Emmanuel Esguerra, who is also this year’s APEC convenor for the GOS, the services sector is important to the Philippines “because it is where we have a comparative advantage.”
In 2014, services accounted for 56.7% of the country’s GDP and 53.6% of total employment, said Esguerra. – Roumina Pablo
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