The top 5 priorities for APEC Leaders’ discussion in Lima were:
• Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP)
• The APEC Growth Strategy
• Structural reforms
• The emergence of anti-globalization & anti-trade sentiments
• Improvement in regional logistics & transport connectivity
Figure 3.26 shows the top 10 priorities in order of their weighted scores but the figures shown are the percentage of respondents who selected the issue as a top 5 priority. The list includes all of the themes that APEC set at the beginning of 2016 except for fostering the regional food system. Only 8.5 percent of respondents selected this as a top priority for APEC Leaders’ discussions making it the 26th out of 28 issues. The challenge for all international organizations, especially those that have been in existence for a number of years, is that the list of issues they are expected to deal with becomes longer and longer each year, especially in a grouping as diverse as APEC.
Question: What do you think should be the top 5 priorities for APEC Leaders to address at their upcoming meeting (various venues): “Expansion of APEC membership”
Question: What do you think should be the top 5 priorities for APEC Leaders to address at their upcoming meeting in Lima?
Figure 3.25: Expansion of APEC Membership as a Priority for APEC Leaders Expansion of APEC membership
13.8%
5.4%
6.8%
12.0%
9.6%
11.9%
7.9%
12.5%
17.8%
12.4%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Figure 3.26: Priorities for APEC Leaders’ Discussions in Lima
% of respondents who chose the issues as a top 5 priority
33.2%
35.8%
33.2%
28.9%
27.1%
23.7%
23.5%
23.5%
20.8%
21.0%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP
The APEC growth strategy
Structural reforms
The emergence of anti-globalisation & anti-trade sentiments
Improvement in regional logistics & transport connectivity
Investing in human capital development
Climate change cooperation and disaster resilience
The modernization of micro, and small and medium enterprises
The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)
Corruption
The top priorities identified by the regional policy community is similar to that of last year. Indeed, the FTAAP has been the top priority for many years running, similarly the APEC growth strategy was also the second highest priority last year. However, perhaps reflecting the concerns over the failure to implement them, structural reforms were the third highest priority. In 2015, APEC adopted the Renewed APEC Agenda for Structural Reform (RAASR) in which APEC economies are expected to set out their own individual action plans for implementing reforms by 2020.
Another and perhaps more important priority is the emergence of anti-globalization and anti-trade sentiment. It was by far the
highest priority selected by North Americans and Oceania, the 4th by Northeast Asians, 9th for Pacific South America and 10th for Southeast Asians. To put these into perspective, 56 percent of respondents from North America selected anti-globalization as a top priority compared to just 20 percent of Southeast Asians.
Figures 3.27 and 3.28 show priorities in order of importance for advanced and emerging economies respectively. The biggest difference was on the relative importance of discussing the rise in anti-globalization and anti-trade sentiments.
While generally speaking there was a strong alignment of interests between respondents on priorities for APEC leaders’ discussions there were some issues that were only considered a priority by one group. For advanced economies they were: Demographics: aging
and labor mobility; Terrorism; and The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). For emerging economies, they were: Corruption; The APEC Roadmap on Services Competitiveness; and The modernization of micro, and small and medium enterprises.
Figure 3.27: Priorities for Advanced Economies
% top 5 priority
37.5%
33.3%
30.3%
28.3%
24.4%
23.5%
23.5%
22.4%
21.3%
18.8%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
The emergence of anti-globalisation
& anti-trade sentiments
The APEC growth strategy
Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP
Structural reforms
The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)
Improvement in regional logistics &
transport connectivity
Climate change cooperation and disaster resilience
Demographics: aging and labor mobility
Terrorism
Investing in human capital development
Figure 3.28: Priorities for Emerging Economies
% top 5 priority
37.3%
39.9%
39.2%
34.2%
30.4%
31.9%
23.6%
25.1%
19.0%
17.1%
Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP
Structural reforms
The APEC growth strategy
The modernization of micro, and small and medium enterprises
Investing in human capital development
Improvement in regional logistics &
transport connectivity
Climate change cooperation and disaster resilience
Corruption
The APEC Roadmap on Services Competitiveness
The emergence of anti-globalisation
& anti-trade sentiments
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
3. PERSPECTIVES ON REGIONAL POLICY ISSUES
Even though the FTAAP was originally a proposal from the business community, this year, other concerns have topped their list of priorities, notably the emergence of anti-globalization sentiments.
On the other hand, government respondents placed a much higher priority on the progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP.
There was slightly less alignment between business and government views on priorities than there was among advanced and emerging economies views. For businesses only: Corruption;
Terrorism; Development of regional financial systems; and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). For government only: Climate change cooperation and disaster resilience; Investing in human capital development; Progress on the APEC Connectivity Blueprint; The APEC Roadmap on Services Competitiveness.
In spite of the very large differences among Asia-Pacific economies in terms of size, population and level of development, since the formation of APEC in 1989 and even before that, there had been a broad consensus that the best route for regional economies to develop was through free and open economies. It would be easy to understate the difficulties many economies faced in adopting this stance – especially emerging economies. However, through the Bogor Goals the region adopted a set of principles through which regional leaders had the confidence that their most important trading partners would be following the same path. As indicated in this year’s survey findings, there is a risk that the consensus around these principles is faltering – especially in advanced economies.
APEC leaders, ministers and officials need to work together to rebuild that consensus or risk the gains of the past few decades being lost.
Figure 3.29: Priorities for Business
% top 5 priority
33.0%
32.1%
33.5%
25.0%
25.0%
24.1%
25.5%
23.1%
21.2%
22.6%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
The emergence of anti-globalisation
& anti-trade sentiments
Structural reforms
The APEC growth strategy
Corruption
Improvement in regional logistics &
transport connectivity
The modernization of micro, and small and medium enterprises
Terrorism
Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP
The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)
The development of regional financial systems
Figure 3.30: Priorities for Government
% top 5 priority
43.3%
38.1%
41.0%
32.1%
32.8%
25.4%
25.4%
23.1%
22.4%
18.7%
0% 5% 10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%
Progress towards the Bogor Goals and the FTAAP
Structural reforms
The APEC growth strategy
Investing in human capital development
The modernization of micro, and small and medium enterprises
Climate change cooperation and disaster resilience
Improvement in regional logistics
& transport connectivity
The emergence of anti-globalisation and anti-trade sentiments
The APEC Roadmap on Services Competitiveness
Progress on the APEC Connectivity Blueprint