Business Presses for Multilateral Agenda to Help Distressed Communities in the Asia-Pacific

Meeting amid fragile global economic growth, stagnant trade and subdued investment, the APEC Business Advisory Council recognized the costs of globalization, including its effects on reducing employment, excess pressure on social services and that multinational corporations may sometimes game the tax system.
Weighed against those concerns, ABAC members acknowledged that there is much more to gain from globalization, which results in increased productivity and innovation, access to more varieties of products, lower consumer prices and help to reduce environmental degradation.
“Protectionism and globalization skepticism are on the rise in different corners of the globe,” exclaimed Bui who is the 2017 Chair of APEC Senior Officials. “But this is not a time for despair.”
“The world and the Asia-Pacific region is being challenged by lethargy in the multilateral trading system,” said Thailand’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Virasakdi Futrakul.
“APEC’s policy actions are sorely needed for businesses to tap more effectively into the Asia-Pacific region’s robust multi-billion dollar markets in services, logistics, health care, digital trade as well as renewable energy to name a few, thus creating jobs and prosperity for societies,” continued Bui.
Futrakul added that nurturing the competitiveness and internationalization of micro, small and medium-size enterprises is key to achieving quality growth that leaves no one behind. For example, economies can offer lending support like Thailand’s strategy to help villages and cooperatives gain access to the global market.
Press-release at the official APEC web-site