Apec expected to adopt inclusive growth roadmap
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MANILA, Philippines-- The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) is expected to adopt a five-year roadmap post-2015 aimed at fostering inclusive growth not only across the region but also in each of the 21 member-economies.
In a statement on Tuesday, state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said it would spearhead the upcoming Apec Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting on Sept. 7 to 8 in Cebu in the Visayas, which “will focus primarily on addressing issues that impede inclusive growth.”
This year’s structural reform ministerial meeting, only the second to be held since the first meeting hosted by Australia in 2008, will be chaired by Philippine Economic Planning Secretary and Neda Director-General Arsenio M. Balisacan.
“Guided by this year’s theme, our priority is to facilitate inclusiveness, not only in the regional sense but also within economies. The Apec region has been growing rapidly as a whole but this is in many cases shared unevenly across societies,” Balisacan noted.
At their meeting in Cebu, ministers “will discuss key issues including challenges in implementing structural reform, their respective economies’ priorities, and areas of collaboration,” Neda said.
The meeting will focus on five themes: structural reform for inclusive growth; structural reform and innovation; structural reform and services; tools for structural reform; and new directions for structural reform in Apec.
To help member-economies identify challenges as well as solutions to inclusive growth, representatives from the Apec Secretariat and the World Bank are expected to tackle cooperation on services and regulatory reform, according to Neda.
The two-day, high-level meeting will be capped by the ministers’ adoption of a document dubbed as the “Apec New Strategy for Structural Reform,” which Neda said was aimed at “further enhancing the efforts and focus of structural reform initiatives from 2016 to 2020.”
