APEC Developing Policy, Regulatory Environment for Internet Economy

Boracay Island (PNA) — Member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) are working out an enabling policy and regulatory environment to support efforts to realize economic and social benefits offered by connectivity crucial to achieving inclusive growth.

APEC would also accelerate investments in internet infrastructure, as they recognized the increasing importance of internet economy in providing jobs and opportunities across the Asia-Pacific region.

Ambassador Laura Del Rosario, APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) Chair 2015, said no business sector or segment of society would be “untouched” by the power and potential of connectivity.

“Connectivity, through the internet economy, will help bring SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to market, improve education and health services delivery, link small farmers to large markets, and change the way we design, create and consume products and services, among others,” she said.

The majority of global internet users already reside in the region and that the number is growing, indicating the importance of the internet economy to the Asia-Pacific.

But as economies mobilize to deal with the policy framework for managing this phenomenon, the lack of common legal and economic frameworks to support the free flow of information is slowing the diffusion of internet technologies, innovation and opportunity across the region.

This imposes costs on businesses and especially on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to expand their opportunities and break into overseas markets.

“We operate in six ASEAN economies and each has different regulations for third-party taxi booking applications like GrabTaxi. This means we have to do business one way in one market and another way in others, which disrupts scalability and the social impact we are trying to make,” said Nina Teng, Vice President of Public Affairs for GrabTaxi.

She called upon regional economies to collaborate with each other and companies on developing new regulations for the internet economy.

For his part, Eduardo Pedrosa, Secretary General at Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), underscored the importance of collaborative efforts involving innovators, regulators and policy makers.

“Things are moving so quickly if we rush to regulate, we might strangle the very innovations we want to promote,” he said.

Pedrosa said PECC has been contributing to APEC’s initiative on the internet economy. PECC is the only non-governmental official observer of APEC.

He said the international organization had established a task force composed of experts from business, the academia and government to determine issues APEC would be addressing through the Ad Hoc Steering committee. It will also provide some independent analysis of those issues and recommendations for actions. (PNA) RMA/LDV