SINGAPORE – The 2023 CTI Annual Report to Ministers highlights the CTI and sub-fora’s progress and achievements, including in support of United States’ 2023 theme “Creating a Resilient and Sustainable Future for All,” and its priority of building a more interconnected, innovative, and inclusive APEC region.
The report is structured around the CTI’s priorities and key activities as set out by CTI: Section I: Support for the multilateral trading system. Section II: Advancing Economic Integration in the Region. Section III: Trade Facilitation, Connectivity, Digitalisation, and Innovation. Section IV: Inclusion and Sustainability issues. Section V: Engagement with the business sector and industry dialogues. Section VI:Governance. Section VII: Implementing the Putrajaya Vision, including through the Aotearoa Plan of Action.
2023 APEC Economic Policy Report: This year’s APEC Economic Policy Report (AEPR) discusses the complex topic of Structural Reform and an Enabling Environment for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Businesses. In particular, it sheds light on the important intersection between private activity and the public interest. The AEPR highlights the importance of ensuring a conducive business environment, one that reduces transaction costs and facilitates firm entry, operation and closure. Not only is this good for business and competitiveness, but it also gives firms the space to contribute toward inclusion, resilience and sustainability goals.
It further highlights the importance of measuring and recognising firms’ contributions toward the public interest, be it in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions or serving underserved communities. In the same vein, it points out that policymakers can, through structural reform policies, do more to enable businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to contribute toward social goals; measure progress regularly and comprehensively; and incentivise private sector investment toward inclusion, resilience and sustainability.
Fact sheet – This two-page fact sheet provides an overview of the 2023 APEC Economic Policy Report (AEPR) on Structural Reform and an Enabling Environment for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Businesses. The report examines the role of structural reform in enabling the private sector, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to contribute toward sustainability, inclusion and resilience.
