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Policy Brief Outline

APEC Policy Brief Drivers of Services Competitiveness and the Contribution of Structural Reform - February 2024

Executive summary

Highlights the increasing importance of services in APEC economies and globally. Discusses drivers of services competitiveness including openness, regulation, innovation, and human capital. Emphasizes the need for structural reforms to enhance services competitiveness and the role of APEC cooperation.

Services sector growth and trade

Reviews the growing size and significance of services sectors in APEC economies. Examines trends in services trade, including the rise of digital services trade. Discusses the role of services in global value chains and sustainable development.

Drivers of competitiveness

Analyzes key factors driving services competitiveness, including market conditions, openness, regulation, innovation ecosystems, and human capital. Emphasizes the importance of digital enablement and regulatory harmonization across economies. Discusses principles for effective services regulation reform.

APEC Cooperation

Reviews the overlap between services policy reform and APEC’s structural reform agenda. Examines APEC tools and initiatives to promote services competitiveness, including EAASR and ASCR. Proposes areas for further APEC cooperation to support services sector reforms in member economies.

Policy Brief Outline

APEC Policy Brief on EAASR and ASCR: Services Competitiveness and Structural Reform – December 2022

Section 1

Offers an extended overview of much of the material in the Brief, including a snapshot of the services sector and trade in services in the APEC region. It identifies the scope of barriers to trade, and explains why services liberalization and structural reform go hand in hand. It outlines relevant tools which APEC already has in place, and notes the Ministerial Mandate for further cooperation in the application of those tools.

Section 2

Highlights the linkages between digitalization and services competitiveness. In the context of the development and application of new digital technology, it reports on key factors that enable a successful transformation to the new economy. It identifies policy implications from this framework.

Section 3

Recalls the previous APEC work on services and structural reform, and notes how the experience of the pandemic has strengthened some of the earlier recommendations but also added to that list. It provides further discussion of the design and successful operation of a program of structural reform, and focuses on the contribution of cooperation among economies in that effort.

Section 4

Reviews various forms of international cooperation which are relevant to structural reform focussed on services competitiveness in the context of the digital transformation, particularly in the WTO. With this background, the chapter concludes with attention to the especially valuable special contributions that can be made by the APEC process.