APEC Updates: Structural Reforms on Services Eyed

The 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies will focus on services during Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting (SRMM) in Cebu next month, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) International Economic Relations Undersecretary Laura del Rosario said.

Del Rosario, who is also the APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) 2015 Chair, said in an interview that APEC targets to kick off structural reforms on services as this sector is the most complex to negotiate.

“Services, that area is the hardest to negotiate,” she said noting that it extends to various sectors such as tourism, finance, information technology, support, logistics, and manufacturing-related services like design, among others.

She added that the APEC meet on structural reform aims to give a glimpse to APEC economies where to focus developments in regulations.

“We’re looking at values, issues, and areas in the economic environment where structural reform is needed,” the DFA official said.

“If you look at the agenda, it will — in a way — try to give a glimpse, a picture, of various areas in our economic environment where our regulators should focus on,” she added.

Del Rosario noted that structural reform on services is the focus of the Philippines where it has lot of advantages.

The Philippines has proposed APEC Services Cooperation Framework (ASCF) during the first SOM in January.

“What we want is just a framework at least the members of APEC can evaluate what needs to be done in each sector,” del Rosario said adding the SRMM will discuss the roadmap towards APEC’s medium- and long-run targets on reforms.

“Eventually when you talk about structural reforms, you will actually be going to regulatory reforms, then regulatory convergence,” she explained.

“So it’s easier for capital and investments to move across borders to all APEC economies. [We] are actually looking into the rules that should be the same,” the government official noted. (PNA) CTB/KMC