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APEC urged to expand training for SMEs

Economic and technical cooperation, billed to be the third pillar of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) after trade and investment liberalization, dominated discussions at the two-day conference of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) that ended here on Saturday

The Jakarta Post
Singapore
Mon, February 25, 2013

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APEC urged to expand training for SMEs

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conomic and technical cooperation, billed to be the third pillar of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) after trade and investment liberalization, dominated discussions at the two-day conference of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) that ended here on Saturday.

Senior officials as well as business and academic leaders called for a more cohesive program of action focusing on building the institutional capacity of APEC’s developing members to gain greater benefit from free, open trade and investment in the region.

“More pragmatic programs of action in economic and technical cooperation [Ecotech] are needed to enable all APEC members to enjoy the benefits of free trade and investment, otherwise there will be no further commitment to liberalized trade,” Indonesia’s Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu told the council during a teleconference from Moscow.

The meeting urged APEC to prioritize trade facilitation, instead of trade liberalization, given the different levels of development of member economies, and focus on Ecotech programs to help its developing members gear up for free, open trade and investment with more developed members.

PECC, which was set up in 1980, is a tripartite partnership of senior individuals from business and industry, government, academic and other intellectual circles from more than 23 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

As all delegates participate in the conference in their private capacities, they can freely discuss current and political policy issues of the region.

The conference pinned great hopes on Indonesia, the chair of APEC this year, to wring stronger commitment from APEC leaders to launch better programs of action on capacity building, when they meet in Bali in October.

Arto Suryodipuro, the director for Asia Pacific and African Intra-Regional Cooperation at the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry, said APEC had approved 2,000 Ecotech programs worth US$140 million.

Many participants think there are too many programs, lacking focus on concrete growth and sustainable development, too widely spread across a range of areas from health to antiterrorism and anticorruption. They suggest that the vast list of ideas, goals and projects loosely grouped under the Ecotech umbrella should be reviewed and reduced to a more manageable set of coherent programs.

“If APEC is serious about regional economic integration it should focus on workable programs to transfer business competence to small and medium-enterprises [SMEs] and help them to link up with the global supply chain,” said Jusuf Wanandi, co-chair of PECC.

Wanandi believes that, as the chair of APEC, Indonesia should cooperate with China and the Philippines to force APEC leaders into more SME development.

“That way, SME development will be secure for at least the next two years because China will chair APEC next year and the Philippines in 2015,” Wanandi said.

Png Cheong Boon, chief executive of SPRING, the agency in charge of SME development in Singapore, shares Wanandi’s views, pointing out that in APEC countries SMEs account for 90 percent of all businesses and employ as much as 60 percent of the workforce while generating only about 30 percent of exports.

Png wants SME networking and business matchmaking among APEC members to develop export-competitive companies through sharing information on best business practices.

Teng Theng Dar, the director of Business Compass Consultancy in Singapore, wants closer cooperation between SME development centers and business-incubation centers in higher learning institutions which is one of the most effective ways of transferring business competences to SMEs.

APEC, which accounts for more than 55 percent of global gross domestic product, will hold a ministerial conference on SME development in Bali in early September in the run up to the APEC summit.

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