APEC is working hard to foster closer cooperation and integration in the Asia-Pacific region so that growth and prosperity is shared by future generations, APEC Secretariat Executive Director, Ambassador Muhamad Noor, said today (November 9).
Ambassador Noor said APEC is focused on three broad areas to boost economic growth across the region; trade and investment liberalization and facilitation; making it easier and cheaper to do business in the region; and increasing economic and technical cooperation between members.
Speaking at an APEC youth forum in the Nissan headquarters - Yokohama, Ambassador Noor pointed to a 61% reduction in tariffs in the Asia-Pacific region since 1989, when APEC was formed, thanks in part to its ongoing work on trade liberalization.
Average applied tariffs have reduced from 16.9% in 1989 to 6.6% in 2008. APEC’s activities have also contributed to a six-fold increase in APEC members’ total trade in the same period. And, as a result, GDP per capita in the region has increased 47%.
“What this means for consumers and citizens are lower prices, greater choices, better standards of living, and, importantly, more employment”, Ambassador Noor told youth leaders, university students and officials.
“Given its membership and economic influence, APEC is an important entity on the world stage. It is a strategic vehicle for diplomatic and economic engagement between economies such as the US, China, Japan and Russia, and it plays an important role in advancing negotiations in other forums such as the WTO”, the Ambassador told the forum.
APEC members now account for 40% of the world’s population, 44% of global trade and 54% of world GDP.
APEC is committed to the Bogor Goals set in 1994 of realizing free and open trade and investment in the region, which are a key to enhancing growth and prosperity. An assessment of member economies’ progress towards these goals has been undertaken and will be presented to Leaders in Yokohama this week.
According to Mr Muhamad Noor, increasing technical cooperation is an important part of APEC’s agenda, especially for the developing economies, to help secure the region’s growth. Some 1,600 capacity building projects have been undertaken within APEC since 1993.
APEC is also working towards its goal of making it 25 percent cheaper, faster and easier to do business by 2015, with an action plan that helps in particular development of the region’s small and medium enterprises.
In light of the global financial crisis, Japan, as host of APEC in 2010, is leading development of a new growth strategy that aims to sustain prosperity in the future in the region. The strategy, which is expected to be released by Leaders this week, focuses on five attributes of growth: balanced, sustainable, innovative, inclusive and secure.
“Given the uncertainty surrounding the health of the global economy and persistent concerns related to climate change and energy and food security, APEC’s focus has turned to considering how to sustain future economic growth”, Ambassador Noor stressed.
(CPV)
