Last April, I wrote about the Apec Business Advisory Council (Abac) that was established in 1995 “as a permanent body to act as an independent voice of business within the Apec process” and as “the sole non-governmental entity that has a role in the Apec Economic Leaders’ Meeting through a formal dialogue.” All 21 economies that comprise Apec have designated three business leaders each to Abac. The members for the Philippines are Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Doris Ho and Tony Tan Caktiong. Makati Business Club (MBC) functions as the secretariat for this Abac-Philippines team.
Abac meets four times a year, the fourth meeting being the culmination of a year’s work when Abac members get to sit with the Apec leaders and discuss their agreed recommendations. In 2011, Abac met in Guangzhou in February, Seoul in April and Lima in August. The fourth meeting will be in Honolulu this November, alongside the Apec Leaders’ meeting and the annual CEO Summit. Abac has already forwarded its final report to US President Barack Obama as the 2011 Apec chair, and has distributed the 71-page report to the leaders of the 21 Apec economies.
The report proposes 11 actions that “Abac believes would help stimulate economic growth and create jobs in the short term and work towards balanced growth in the long term.” These 11 actions in 2011 include the following: strengthen the global supply chain and value chains, promote regulatory coherence, renew focus on multilateral trade, address next-generation trade and investment issues, ensure food security, address energy security, encourage SME cross-border trade, promote regional integration of financial markets, enhance SME access to finance, support green growth, and promote economic inclusion for women.
For 2011, Abac-Philippines, with MBC support, decided to focus on a few key agenda items relevant to the Philippines, begin consultations and a continuing dialogue with the broader local business community, and work closely with government agencies engaged with the Apec and its processes. Two meetings with key officials of the finance, trade and industry, and foreign affairs departments have been conducted, and a third is slated this month to prepare for Honolulu. A meeting and briefing with President Aquino, together with the secretaries of these three relevant departments, has likewise been set.
For the business community, a meeting was convened last Aug. 16 wherein 11 major business organizations were represented. Abac-Philippines’ members were pleasantly surprised by the keen interest shown by the business leaders to participate in a dialogue aimed at enhancing the participation of the Philippines in the Abac process. One resolution reached was for Abac and the Asean-BAC to coordinate and, if possible, work together on common issues. As promised at the meeting, Abac-Philippines has begun distributing copies of the 2011 Abac report to the 11 business groups.
Next-generation trade and investment issues highlighted in the 2011 report include “addressing skilled personnel shortages” and “promoting more open trade and investment in services.” Abac is recommending that Apec “expedite progress on the skills mapping project” as a first step towards identifying skill gaps in the region that may be filled by the movement of labor within the region. It further recommends that Apec “consider initiatives to regularize the management of talent movement around the region.” These will open more doors for our vast human resource pools that already have proven track records here and abroad. It is hoped this will “provide foundations for optimizing the region’s talent pool before skill shortages begin to strangle growth.” Abac-Philippines has been helping to lead this Abac agenda and will continue to help champion labor mobility issues.
To promote trade and investment in services, Abac is asking Apec to “ensure continued progress in regional services trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, give priority to regulatory reform, establish an active program to raise informed awareness of, and improve data gathering in, services trade and investment,” and “improve monitoring of progress in services trade liberalization.” To this end, Abac-Philippines and Abac-Hong Kong are spearheading an initiative on trade and investment in services that will look into successes and challenges in Hong Kong and the Philippines to illustrate the value of facilitating and developing a strong regional services economy. As Abac-Philippines continues to co-lead on this Abac agenda, it will be essential for the local business community to understand the issues and get involved.
Also relevant to the Philippine economy are the recommendations on SMEs that “are designed to improve the ability of SMEs to take advantage of capital, technology, information and trade regulations.” Some of these recommendations call on Apec to “improve access to capital, help the financially underserved, support the development of broadband networks, reduce the cost and administrative burden for SMEs,” as well as other specific actions to promote economic inclusion and advance capacity-building among SMEs.
In 2011, the Abac-Philippines team succeeded in becoming an active voice of Philippine business in the Abac process. Its continuing success relies on the participation of the business community in the various avenues of consultation and discussion. Its success will help ensure that more and more Filipinos become truly globally competitive doing what they do best, whether here or beyond our shores.
Peter Angelo V. Perfecto is the executive director of the Makati Business Club.