Events
APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap - Annual Dialogue 2023
Held at second Senior Officials Meeting (SOM2) 2023 in Detroit.
DAY 2 VIDEOS
FULL VIDEO
Session 1 - Good Regulatory Practices
In trade in services, regulatory differences have emerged as key impediments. This session reviews the scope of ‘good regulatory practice’ (GRP) and its application to services. There are examples of handbooks used to capture the scope of GRP and their progress, particularly in ASEAN, will be reviewed. There will be discussion of matters related to trade and investment and their treatment in the application of these principles. The relevance of GRP in other work programs in APEC is a topic for this session, and consideration will also be given to the scope of the FTAAP agenda in APEC, and not only the treatment of services in that agenda but also the insights offered by work on GRP.
Session 2 - Individual Actions Plans and the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap
The APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap was reviewed in 2022 and the APEC Enhanced Agenda on Structural Reform (EAASR) was under review in 2023. A key theme of the work to date on services and structural reform, including the 2022 Policy Brief, is that these two agenda are common.
In this part, the Dialogue considered this topic initially from the perspective of the EAASR, and the Individual Action Plans in which economies report their progress. A preliminary assessment based on the mid-term is offered by APEC’s Policy Support Unit.
The session then discussed how the IAPs can be used to report progress not only for EAASR but also for the Aotearoa Plan of Action, where economies committed to further services liberalisation, facilitation, and cooperation, including by implementing the APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap. There were presentations from Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam and New Zealand.
Session 3 - Policy Tools
There is always a question of setting reform priorities. There is some guidance from frameworks for competitiveness. The 2022 Policy Brief for instance identified human capital, digital readiness and infrastructure, entrepreneurial ecosystems, efficient regulatory regimes and openness to trade and investment. New tools are also available to provide insight to policy makers on this question, including the APEC Index, the application of which is illustrated here in a presentation from the OECD.
Learning
