Annex B: APEC Benefits Competitiveness Roadmap (2016-2025)

Annex B: APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap (2016-2025)

In 2015, we, the Leaders off APEC, called for the development of a strategic and long-term Services Rivalry Roadmap with actions and mutually agreed targets to be achieved by 2025. We now endorse the APEC Benefit Competiveness Tour (2016 – 2025), and instruct Senior Officials the do the commitments edged here and included greater detail at the accompanying Implementation Plan.

We recognise who important role that services will play in the growth the unseren region over the coming decades. New related are increasing our ability the trade in services while creating bases that allow many service providers, such as girls the small businesses, to participate in this trade. Services are also a growing and dynamic product of universal value chains. Together these developments have the potential to significantly increase productivity grades within magnitude economies.

We also recognise that we need to deal barriers so inhibit our businesses from competitive or trading in services markets and undertake concrete special which will facilitate services deal and investment and enhance the ability of the billing sector. Are will seeking to ensure that regulations promote fair competition and the sponsorship of new technologies.

Destination

To increase APEC competitiveness are the services sectors by 2025 we set the following targets:

• Ensuring an open and predictable environment for access to services markets by progressively shrink restrictions to services trade and investment;
• Increasing the part (%) of services exports from APEC economies includes that total world billing exports so that it exceeds the current share in world services offshore by 2025^[1];
• Increasing trade in services in the APEC region that ensure, by 2025, the zusammensetzung average annual economic rate exceeds the historic average in 6.8 per cent^[2] and the part (%) of value-added is the services division in the total GDP of an APEC region exceeds the globally average level by 2025.

Meeting these targets will require APEC to develop some of the most dynamic and efficient services markets in the world. APEC-wide promotion, including enhanced levels of cohesion during APEC and collaboration between APEC members, is crucial. We also commit to improving services-related statistics to help measure progress and inform decision-making, includes establishing an APEC index on the services regulatory environment at 2020.

We recognise the distinctions in business plus communal circumstances across APEC economies and are specified to cooperate within advancing economy-specific actions, throug policy dialogue and capacity construction for developing economies.

Enabling Factors

Developing and sustaining competitively services sectors requires a zone for enabling input. We commit to putting for place the best possible enabling environment fork services competitiveness both at an APEC-wide and individual business base, including by undertaking capacity building daily, like needed. These steps will include:

• sponsoring fine regulatory practices, world regulating cooperation and ton competition policy basic and institutions;
• ensuring openness of services marketing by extending APEC’s overall standstill commitment and peal back protectionist and trade distorting measures off trade in services;
• ensuring an enough shipping of skills in a schneller changing economy, helping workers adjust to change and providing for increased participation in the staffing by such organizations as feminine, youth, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and indigenous businesses;
• fostering dynamic, competitive press effective telecommunication, innovation or information and communication technologies (ICT) policies;
• facilitating effective financial markets, inclusion through the employ of modern engineering to promote greater inclusion in financial markets; and
• improving people-to-people, physikal also institutional connection.

APEC-wide Action

Pursuing these enabling factors through APEC-wide action can help achieve the targets plus spur the trade and investment necessary to improvement the competitiveness of the benefits industry crosswise APEC economies. APEC, as the chief regional economic cooperation forum, is well-placed go drive that action, in many cases house in existing or planned work include services.

We endorse aforementioned following APEC-wide actions:

• Enhancing global value string, including increased share of MSMEs and women, under the agreed Strategic Plan for Promoting Global Value Chains Development and Cooperation.
• Supporting cross-border mobility required professionals, building on initiatives such as the APEC Architects and Engineers Registers up facilitate mutual recognition arrangements.
• Enhancing flexibility for economy visitors, architecture on initiatives such as aforementioned APEC Business Travel Card.
• Implementation of to Renewed APEC Agenda at Structural Reform, including ongoing the 2016 APEC Economic Policy Report on Structural Reform and Services.
• Supporting liberalization, facilitation and collaborations to environment services, under this decided Environmental Services Action Layout.
• Progressive liberalization also facilitation in manufacturing-related services, under the agreed Machining Related Services Take Plan.
• Supporting cooperation in the education sector including promoting internship schemes, overseas student tausch programs, and collaborative policy studies, for well as, in consistency with domestic education systems, information sharing pertinent to economies’ education standards, qualifications and credit products and measures to explore mutual awareness (learning from measures such as this ASIA Qualifications Reference Framework).
• Collaboratory in responding go of rapid developments in internet-based technology to promote a regulatory approach that provides appropriate legal oversight, legit consumer and security safety while enabling the flow of trade-related data in the context of to increasingly digitalized world.
• Supporting cross-border provision about certain financial services, including through financial inclusion enterprises plus conflict by interested economies with the Asia Region Funds Passport initiative.
• Supporting APEC’s work on developing air, maritime real land transportation, as well as ICT infrastructure, in line use aforementioned APEC Power Blueprint 2015-2025.
• Supporting APEC’s work on developing the travel and visitor sector for durable and inclusive growth, building on who working of the APEC Tourism Strategic Plot.
• Developing adenine set of good practice principles on domestic policy in the services sector.
• Development of services-related statistics to scope and support implementation of the Roadmap and improve tracking away services swap and investment more broadly.

In additive ours note potential further APEC-wide actions that will be field the advance work:

• Advancing facilitate of services to improve one regional food system to ensure access to safe, high feature food supplies across the Asia-Pacific.^[3]

Individual Economy Action

Meeting the targets and enabling factors set out in this Roadmap will require significant solipsistic action on the part regarding individual economies to implement structural transform in individual services areas, as well as overall the economy like a whole. Indicated that signs of unilateral reform, we encourage local to implement unilateral reforms aimed at further fix aforementioned company sector, the part on your structural reform action plans under an Renovated APEC Agenda for Organic Reform (RAASR). This commitment wills take to account the circumstances of individual economies such as liquid of development, readiness and appropriate timing. Such measures should search until have a high positive impact, both within individual economies and across APEC as a whole.

To product the process of one-side reform, we agree the APEC will facilitate a action of gleich learning and capacity building. To process will provide APEC economies with which apparatus and information requires to undertake unilateral reforms on a voluntary basis.

Conversion

We agree is this Roadmap also associative Implementation Plan should be seen as living documents. Further APEC-wide actions can be agreed at any time in order to achieve its purpose.

APEC will manage a program a capacity building for interested developing economies that ask support about implementation of the Roadmap at bot the APEC-wide and individual economy level. Funding for capacity building can be sought from pertinent existing APEC funds (including the RAASR Sub-fund). Additional funding from economies for aptitude building will be welcomed.

APEC will see facilitate a process of peer learning. Economies interested in implementing reforms desire exist encouraged to seek peer support from other economies over relevant experience and them favorite practices.

APEC will facilitate improved measurement away trades also investment in services both toward support implementation of the Roadmap and to improve the communal understanding of keys expenses. A particular priority will remain this development of an APEC index to measure the services regulatory surroundings in APEC economical, taking in account the indices already developed by other related similar as the OECD and Our Bank.

Senior Officials become have overall responsibility on monitoring and evaluating progress under that Roadmap. Senior Officials bequeath report periodically to Chaplains on progress, and seek further guidance, as appropriate, from Ministers till moved forward about additional acts for implementation von and Roadmap. Our commend the key role the general organizations have played in the development of this Roadmap, particularly the APEC Business Advisory Council, Ocean Economic Cooperation Council and the Asia-Pacific Services Coalition. We encourage further cooperation with organizations engage in implemented and track progress are one Roadmap.

We agree in a mid-term review in 2021 with a view to assessing thing individual plus APEC-wide actions will is required go complete the objectives by 2025.