Noy preparing to become successful host to APEC leaders
President Aquino is prepping up to become a successful host to leaders of the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC) summit next week with the South China Sea dispute proving to be a testy issue.
Local officials have been trying to highlight the development initiatives that will affect people’s lives and make them feel the benefits or importance of the country’s hosting of the event. The country last hosted APEC in 1996.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said President Aquino is no stranger to global summits, and is familiar with how they are conducted.
Valte made the statement when asked how the President could possibly handle conflicting positions and even possible heated debates among APEC leaders, such as, for instance, the positions of the United States and China over various issues, including the maritime row with Beijing.
While the Philippines and the US share a common position on the matter, the country is putting the sea dispute with China on the back burner to focus on economic issues.
Foreign affairs spokesman Charles Jose said when Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario met with his counterpart, Wang Yi early this week, the Chinese official was assured the Philippines “recognized that APEC is an economic forum and that the South China Sea is not included in the agenda.”
“But at the same time, Secretary del Rosario said that, of course, we have no control over what the other economic leaders would be raising during the Leaders’ Retreat,” Jose said in a press briefing at the International Media Center in Pasay City.
US officials have been quoted in reports as saying US President Barack Obama would raise the issue during his visit to the Philippines for the APEC and in Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit the following week.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has confirmed attendance to the APEC summit but his officials said they would not want the dispute to be discussed during the meetings, as these would not be the proper forum.
Dispute aside, Valte said “the President has been preparing to chair the APEC as well the APEC Leaders’ Retreat and…is also prepared to moderate such discussions,” Valte said.
“Certainly, when it comes to the economic issues, the President is well prepared to chair and to navigate discussions between different member-economies as they take place during the Leaders’ Retreat,” she said.
‘Significant progress made’
On Thursday, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Laura del Rosario, chairperson of the APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting, said they were hoping to deliver concrete outputs during the summit.
From trade and investment liberalization as well as facilitation forum, Del Rosario said APEC had made significant progress in terms of tariff reduction, ease of doing business, getting rid of certain regulatory restrictions or rigidities so the economies could be more friendly to the business people.
She said as host, the Philippines would focus on inclusive growth with the following priorities: investing in human capital development, fostering micro, small and medium enterprises’ (MSMEs) participation in regional and global markets, building sustainable and resilient communities amid disasters and enhancing regional economic integration agenda.
“Now, people have always asked why, whether APEC is also doing something that will benefit the ordinary person and, of course, for me it goes without saying that if there’s a lot of business activity going on, definitely the average person will benefit in terms of employment creation,” Del Rosario said.
She added businesses were also the lifeblood of economies with the taxes they pay and which the government would use for social services.
This year, Del Rosario said the development agenda would include areas of activity that would affect the well being of the person and not just businesses per se.
She cited a big project on health under the Healthy Asia Pacific 2020, disaster risk reduction and management, initiatives on women, gender, persons with disabilities, water urbanization, converting waste like plastic to wealth to create livelihood, among others.
“And related to this, of course, is the key accountability area of social equality, equity so that each one will have the same access to same opportunity. And we are looking, of course, at education once more as one way of giving everyone an even playing field,” she said.
The third key accountability area is environmental impact of economic activities, Del Rosario said, “as everybody now believes that when you do something, when you create a product, you create a process, you create a procedure, it should not really destroy the environment but it should rather contribute to the development of the environment.”
“That’s why most of the activities now are what we call green technology, and we are talking about green and sustainable growth. And in this area, we have deliverables on food security and the blue economy, which is really related to the marine resources of the Pacific region,” she said.
Del Rosario said services would also be a main priority such as tourism, hospitality industry and even in manufacturing, agriculture, creative design, media, entertainment or events organization.
“So all of these, we hope that the time will come when we will be able to have more open economies that will allow services to be moving across borders,” she said.
Del Rosario said climate change was also a main concern because it was a “game changer in the way we do our things now.”
“Many of our discussions, in fact, have climate change as a context. So when we talk about connectivity issues, meaning connectivity of economies in terms of physical infrastructure, we’re thinking of climate change,” she said.
“So we are talking about quality infrastructure. We are discussing guidelines and standards on quality infrastructure. Even the finance ministers’ process has also climate change embedded in it because they are talking about financing SMEs for business continuity or disaster risk insurance. We are talking about that,” Del Rosario added.
She said climate change was also part of discussions on global supply chain, security, transportating people and energy.