Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, 30 April 2023 – APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) members this week urged APEC Trade Ministers to leverage the challenges facing the region, including environmental risks, financial stress and the cost-of-living crisis, as opportunities to firmly place the region on a new path of economic inclusion, resilience, and sustainability. Separate letters to APEC trade ministers and transportation ministers and statements on the WTO and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific capture ABAC’s views.
2023 ABAC Chair Dominic Ng noted, “The private sector wants to see governments in the region build on the lessons learned from dealing with the pandemic to make trade more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable for all. ABAC is supporting this effort by bringing forward clear, concrete recommendations for governments that, if implemented, will result in tangible outcomes. Many of these recommendations are captured in the letters and statements that we finalized at our meeting in Brunei.”
Regarding ABAC’s Statement on the World Trade Organization, Ng said, “Our businesses, communities and our planet deserve a future-ready, effective, and enforceable global trading system – that demands ambitious outcomes at the WTO, including on core reforms in agriculture, fisheries subsides and dispute settlement, and in the open plurilateral negotiations on digital trade and the environment.”