The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has established a network of anti-corruption authorities and law enforcement experts who will work together to help eradicate graft and bribery in the region.
The newly launched APEC Network of Anti-Corruption Authorities and Law Enforcement Agencies, or ACT-NET, has been described as a “ground-breaking new channel for the exchange of sensitive-case information” to significantly enhance the fight against large-scale corruption and bribery in the Asia-Pacific market.
ACT-NET, which held its first meeting late last week, will deepen the exchange of legal procedures and investigative techniques used to pursue corrupt officials and assets, and fight business bribery.
It also affords opportunities to share successful cross-border law enforcement cases and develop future joint projects and capacity-building measures, according to the network’s official release.
“As domestic anti-corruption efforts intensify, corrupt officials flee abroad and remain at large by taking advantage of legal differences between our jurisdictions,” said Fu Kui, Vice Minister of China’s National Bureau of Corruption Prevention. “This is a serious challenge to each economy’s rule of law.”
“By building a multilateral platform to strengthen work-level exchange and case cooperation, and expand channels for anti-corruption and law enforcement partnership, we could cut off the escape route of corrupt fugitives,” Fu explained.
“Criminals don’t stop at borders,” said U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus. “So we must work together to stop them and fight graft internationally as well.”
“Whether it is bribery, embezzlement, or the misuse of public funds, corruption is corrosive,” he noted. “It scares investors and stifles economic growth. It decreases investment and trade. And that costs jobs for people in all of our economies.”
Each year, corruption costs economies globally more than US$2.6 trillion, or 5 percent of total gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. It is also estimated to increase the cost of doing business by more than 10 percent.
APEC leaders first agreed to nurture and sustain good governance, economic development, and prosperity by working together to fight corruption and ensure transparency when they met in Santiago, Chile, in 2004.
The following year an anti-corruption and transparency experts’ task force was established, and it was upgraded in status to a working group in March 2011. It was tasked to ensure the implementation of APEC transparency standards, and promote cooperation in areas such as extradition, legal assistance, and judicial/law enforcement (especially asset forfeiture and recovery).
The 21 member-economies of the cooperation agreed to establish a network of anti-corruption and law enforcement authorities last year in Indonesia.
