Ongoing APEC Summit held in the Philippines

Thousands of delegates from 21 APEC member economies convened in the Philippines for the Senior Officials Meetings (SOM), Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting (SRMM), APEC Business Advisory Council meetings, and Economic Leaders Week. With the theme “Building Inclusive Economies, Building a Better World”, APEC Summit will address major economic issues such as free trade agreements and liberalization, inclusive growth, structural reform and regional economic integration, among others.

Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting to focus on reforms to facilitate trade and better functioning markets

The upcoming SRMM will tackle Structural Reform in 5 major key areas: Regulatory Reform, Competition Policy, Public Sector Governance, Corporate Governance, and Strengthening Economic and Legal Infrastructure. It will be held on September 7-8 in Cebu City, Philippines. The focus of SRMM is to eliminate obstacles and facilitate trade and investments among APEC member economies that will lead to better functioning markets and economic progress. At the end of the meeting, the ministers will adopt a post-2015 APEC New Strategy for Structural Reform.

APEC member states include New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Malaysia,Philippines, Russia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, Taiwan, and Vietnam. For more details about APEC, refer to the article “APEC: Breaking the Chains of Trade“.