ASIA-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) member economies is studying on a free trade area for the Asia and the Pacific region to give access to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to the international economy.
Apec Secretariat Executive Director Allan Bollard, in a press briefing on Saturday in Cebu, September 5, said that they are working their way on inclusive economy to make sure that the growth benefits that the region has enjoyed are equally felt by all economies and all people.
“We’re spending a lot of time looking at small and medium enterprises, actually Philippines has changed the debate a little bit. We call them micro, small and medium enterprises,” Bollard said.
Bollard said that a lot of the trade growths in the past are much into big firms such as multinational companies and overseas-owned corporations.
“Small firms have much less represented. The work we’ve done suggests there are big benefits to at least some of those, allowing them to get access more easily to market overseas, to export more, to avoid some of the tariff and non-tariff barriers that are currently places,” Bollard said.
Bollard described the proposed policy as a “broad approach from the Apec” which he said can be done by giving MSMEs access to fee trades areas, to appropriate regulations, to electronic commerce in terms of getting goods and services across borders and getting access to finance.
The Apec executive said that discussion are still going and there are some other issues to tackle like urbanization and building better cities, building communities that are resilient to natural disaster and leveling the trade in services with trade in goods. (Sunnex)