Milestones at APEC Cebu meetings

MACTAN, Cebu—The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) concluded high level meetings in the Queen City of the South recording different milestones and agreements, though nonbinding, in the history of this regional cooperation, which is composed of 21 member countries.

APEC member economies concluded here their third Senior Officials Meeting and Related Meetings (SOM3), Structural Reform Ministerial Meeting (SRMM), Finance and Central Bank Deputies’ Meeting; and Finance Ministers’ Meetings (FMM). The meetings, all in all, lasted more than 20 days from August 22 to September 11.

Over the weekend, the FMM formally concluded by launching the Cebu Action Plan, a 10-year Philippine-led development roadmap for a more sustainable financial future for the AsiaPacific region.

“We hope the CAP emerges as the lasting legacy of the Philippines’ hosting. With 21 economies, multilateral institutions, and private sector support behind it, we are optimistic the CAP can be taken in the next meetings as a living body of continuing work in our bid for a more prosperous, financially integrated, transparent, resilient, and connected Asia Pacific,” Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said.

CAP is a development masterplan drafted by the Philippines, with inputs from development partners and other member economies of the APEC. The four key pillars of CAP are financial integration, fiscal reforms and transparency, financial resilience, and infrastructure development and financing.

On September 8, the Philippines also saw the birth of the world’s largest services coalition after some services organizations from across the Asia Pacific region met on the sidelines of SRMM and agreed to establish the Asia Pacific Services Coalition.

Jane Drake-Brockman, spokesperson of International Trade Centre, said Asia Pacific Services Coalition, which was formed in Cebu, is “probably the world’s largest coalition of service champions.”

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) showed that the coalition’s collective goal is to work with business and government to foster growth and efficiency in the services sector through increased trade and investment, greater innovation and skills development, and pro-growth regulation in all APEC economies.

There will be another set of APEC meetings in Cebu next month, October. From October 8 to 10, APEC transportation del-