Canadian expert: APEC moving in right direction

Ottawa (VNA) – The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is moving in a right direction with the commitment to globalisation and economic development through trade, Stewart Beck, President and CEO of the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada told a Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Ottawa.   

Beck held that the the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Da Nang has two major results. One, the leaders recognised that Vietnam is becoming a major global player economically with great change compared to what it was in Vietnam 11 years ago.

The second thing was the real commitment of the forum, as 20 of 21 APEC member economies, excepting the US, chose to open to the global trading system.

He stressed that APEC has been in play for a number of years and there have been some significant movements on the facilitation of travels of the people in the APEC’s economies.

A lot of tariffs have been lowered as a result of APEC, he noted, adding that it is really maintaining that momentum, moving forward, moving toward and more open trading system that basically provides the benefits to everybody from different economic groups.

Regarding things APEC should do in the future to foster and implement all important goals being set by the summit and being set by the APEC member economies, Beck stated that it needs to recognise that trading is changing with e-commerce.

There are new opportunities being created for small- and medium-sized enterprises, said Beck, adding that technology is not just about becoming selling on the e-commerce platform, technology also help training staffs, finance.

“Financial technology which is changing, again, on how people trade and create economic development. So this is what I think APEC play a big role, and how do we identify those new technologies, how do we guard over regulate and how we get right regulations to encourage the development and growth of SMEs”, he said.

The expert held that if APEC get the driver growth going forward in the global environment, it will increase its importance as an organisation to help integrate the emerging economies into global system.

“It is about how APEC can deal with regulations, with the new technologies as I mentioned, it is about the facilitation of the movement of people and goods,” stated Beck.-VNA