Peruvian President Hosts Business Community in Run Up to Meeting with APEC Leaders
With the global economy in a precarious state, recommendations to APEC Leaders come at a most judicious point in time.
Mr. Juan F. Raffo, Chairman of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), a group comprising some of the most successful and widely recognised names in private business, had an audience with President Alan Garcia today in Lima, Peru.
In an advance session, ABAC revealed the specific set of recommendations which address issues including:
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The global credit contraction, sparked by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and write-downs by various international banks: Regulation should be activity-based and achieved through informal collaboration among regulatory bodies, within and across APEC Economies.
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Acceleration of Regional Economic Integration (REI): APEC Ministers should accelerate work on a Free Trade Area for the Asia Pacific by completing REI studies and exploring all options to achieve the free flow of goods, services, labour and capital within the region.
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Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and Micro-Enterprise Development: Governments should establish various forms of social and financial support in the development of Information Communication Technology (ICT); introduce intellectual property protection programmes and encourage the use of evolving new technologies.
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Response to food supply and prices: APEC should renounce the use of embargoes and other export restrictions as a means of addressing perceived food shortages.
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Mitigation of climate change: In order to more aggressively pursue energy efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, each APEC economy should formulate specific goals and action plans. A peer review mechanism should be established to monitor progress.
Because APEC goals are economic in nature, input from ABAC is a critical consideration of APEC policy-makers. These and other recommendations will be formally issued to APEC Economic Leaders.