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8th GBDe Summit ASIAN e-BUSINESS: Shaping the World

Nov. 9-10, 2006, Taipei

Remarks by Amb. Colin Heseltine, 2007 Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat:: The activities relating to the upcoming APEC Leaders meeting to be held in Hanoi in the next two weeks precluded my attendance at this meeting. Let me thank the organizers for facilitating the APEC Secretariat's contribution to this Summit , albeit at a distance.

In this presentation I would like to provide you with greater insight on activities undertaken by APEC towards creating an environment conducive to the development of e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific region, and the value that APEC bestows on the role of private and public sector cooperation in relation to this very important business sector. I will also provide you with some greater background to APEC.

APEC is first and foremost a forum for facilitating trade and investment and ensuring the economic strength of the Asia-Pacific region. We work towards these goals at several levels, through high level political interaction involving Leaders and Ministers, a continual program of meetings and interaction between senior bureaucrats, and a range of activities that involve stakeholders in the regional economy.

The APEC region is enormous in terms of its size and presence in the global economy. Our total population is around 2.6 billion people, and our economies account for more than 48 per cent of world trade and 56 per cent of global GDP. The growth of APEC economies since 1989 has of course been stunning, with more than 26 per cent growth compared with 8 per cent for non-APEC economies.

APEC continues to maintain its unique character working on the basis of open dialogue and respect for the views of all its members. It remains a consensus-based organization with the flexibility afforded by voluntarily enforced non-binding commitments by members. In this way APEC is able to reflect the unique cultural heritage of our membership. Our non-binding rules approach has given rise to some unique methods in the way we gets things done. Notably these include Individual Action Plans; the independent peer review process; and ‘pathfinder' initiatives. By placing each member economy's performance in a wide range of gover nan ce and policy areas on the public record, for all to see and assess, these arrangements ensure that each economy's compliance is constantly benchmarked. Despite the non-binding nature of commitments there is strong peer pressure to meet them.

Throughout our history APEC has had a strong business focus. From the outset APEC Governments considered that lowering business costs, improving gover nan ce and regulatory environments, eliminating corruption and a host of other policy measures to facilitate business were fundamental in achieving economic growth and advancing economic integration. Growth based on open economies is what APEC is about.

From its inception APEC members saw increased intra-regional trade and investment through market liberalisation as the key to growth. As our economies have already achieved substantial gains in trade liberalization, this remains a core objective but it is now clear that members see this as only part of the picture. The Bogor goals of free trade and investment by 2010 and 2020 - for developed and developing economies respectively - are the guiding focus for APEC and enormous progress towards their achievement has been made. Efforts to continue this progress will remain a top priority for APEC.

APEC's goals and priorities, however, are not confined to market access issues at the border. Increasingly APEC's focus is on those issues that go ‘behind' economies' borders, such as investment barr ier s, competition policy, intellectual property rights, anti-corruption, and the deregulation of services industries.

It is important to stress that reforms in behind-the border areas will promote not just economic growth, but sustainable economic growth. Moreover, they will not only improve the economic environment for the foreign trade and investment-exposed sectors in member economies but, because they entail systemic change, those engaged in domestic economic activity will also benefit. APEC, with its mix of peer reviews, individual action plans and pathfinder initiatives, along with an increasing pool of funding for capacity building in developing member economies, is uniquely placed to contribute to these reforms.
Private and Public Sector Co-operation: APEC Leaders and Ministers recognize that the private sector should take the lead role as innovators and developers of electronic commerce, and that the primary role of the public sector is to ensure a favorable regulatory environment for e-commerce to flourish. We encourage active business participation in our activities. This increasing interaction includes frequent open business-oriented workshops and seminars prior to each of APEC's Telecommunications and Information Working Group (TEL) and Electronic Commerce Steering Group (ECSG) meetings. These events have been an important stimulant for the consideration of issues relating to policy, regulation and capacity building. As you may know, the GBDe has a three year history of participating in the APEC TEL and ECSG as a guest.

To broaden private and public sector participation on these issues, the ECSG has also granted guest status to the Pan-Asian Alliance on E-Commerce (PAA) and recently to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). These organizations present their activities to the ECSG regularly and have proactively contributed to advance the ECSG work plan.

APEC has been expanding its reach and program of collaboration with other international organizations. The ECSG and United Nations Centre for Trade facilitation and Electronic Business have agreed to undertake work that will enhance trade facilitation through technical cooperation and knowledge sharing. These activities will cover work relating to electronic standards for paperless trade.

In addition to this, the APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance and the APEC Public-Private Partnership Dialogue on Paperless Trading aim to establish a public-private cooperative structure that could facilitate effective dialogue and information-sharing activities. These also serve to encourage the active participation of business and government for realizing e-commerce in the APEC region.

The private-sector concept paper on Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Enabled Growth, which I am sure you are familiar with, has been an important document for facilitating this cooperation between business and government. The paper outlined the importance of ICT enabled growth within APEC and provided the impetus to APEC's senior officials to direct relevant fora to consult with the private sector.

The outcomes of these engagements have contributed a great deal to e-commerce development within the Asia-Pacific region.
Importance of Electronic Commerce: APEC's Leaders agreed in 1997 that e-commerce was one of the most important technological breakthroughs of the decade and directed Ministers to undertake a work program on e-commerce.

Since then, APEC has played an active role in creating an environment conducive to the development of electronic commerce in the Asia-Pacific region.

Let me highlight some key achievements and initiatives: the Multilateral Information Technology Agreement (1997); the E-Commerce Blueprint for Action (1998); the Digital Divide Blueprint for Action; the e-APEC Strategy (2001); the APEC Privacy Framework (2004); APEC's Strategies and Actions towards a Cross-Border Paperless Trading Environment (2004); and the APEC Strategy to Ensure a Trustworthy, Secure and Sustainable Online Environment (2005).

APEC has, for some time, recognized the increasing importance of electronic commerce in the economic and social development of the region. The challenges that result from growing borderless interconnectivity and data sharing across multiple service platforms are enormous. APEC is strongly committed to improving information infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific by implementing policies conducive to ICT development and working toward the establishment of the Asia - Pacific Information Society.

Our Leaders and Ministers have instructed APEC fora to enhance the ICT regulatory environment and digital capabilities of APEC economies. In September this year, our senior officials endorsed the report Enhancing the ICT Regulatory Environment and Digital Capabilities of APEC Economies.
Areas of Work: APEC's work in the field of electronic commerce is widely recognized around the world. This includes recognition by the OECD and the International Telecommunication Union for APEC's role in providing leadership in areas as diverse as e-security, anti-spam collaboration, electronic authentication, and regulatory approaches to network interconnection and universal access. M uch of APEC's work in the electronic commerce area tracks very closely with the GBDe's agenda.
Next Generation Network (NGN): To achieve seamless services at a global level, the Telecommunications and Information Working Group actively engages the private sector to identify new technologies and issues.

Ongoing discussions on Next Generation Network (NGN) and the development of the Asia Pacific Information Society continue. The TEL has already made invaluable contributions to this goal, including its initiatives in e-commerce, e-government, e-security, disaster preparation, on-line learning and skills standards development.
Privacy Protection Issues -Consumer Confidence: In 2004 APEC Ministers endorsed the APEC Privacy Framework to develop a secure and favorable economic environment for trade and commerce while protecting consumer privacy. The framework will enable regional data transfers for the benefit of consumers, businesses and governments. The Electronic Commerce Steering Group has conducted capacity building activities such as the Symposium on Information Privacy Protection in E-Government and E-Commerce, which identified benefits as well as underlying issues and challenges related to the protection of privacy in the context of cross-border information flows.

Information Privacy Individual Action Plans have also been developed to create compatible approaches in privacy protection between member economies and to ensure the free flow of information in the region. To date 12 member economies have completed their IAP and other economies have been encouraged to do so. APEC has also created the Cross-Border Rules Study Group to analyse and identify best practices and the role of trustmarks.

The ECSG will continue to work on information sharing, cooperation, and the development of flexible mechanisms to ensure transparent and accountable data-flows, taking into account the APEC Privacy Framework and existing domestic privacy protections.
Cyber Security: APEC member economies have also combined their efforts to combat threats under the APEC Cyber Security Strategy. This Strategy includes a package of measures to protect business and consumers from cyber crime, and to strengthen consumer trust in the use of e-commerce.

Practical tools for protecting small businesses - as well as home users - from attacks and spreading viruses, have been developed, including advice on how to use the internet securely, safety issues relating to wireless technologies and safe e-mail exchanges. Training is being provided to a number of economies, and guidelines have been developed for establishing and operating Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) as an early warning defense system against cyber attacks.

APEC has also adopted the APEC Strategy to Ensure a Trustworthy, Secure and Sustainable Online Environment to further guide APEC work to promote a trustworthy, secure and sustainable environment.
Asia Pacific Information Society: APEC Telecommunication Ministers have reaffirmed that the Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure (APII) is an essential basis for ensuring competitiveness of the region. They have also instructed TEL officials to intensify their efforts to achieve an Asia-Pacific Information Society (APIS).

To that end, the TEL has approved the proposal “Future Vision of the Asia Pacific Information Society (APIS) ” to develop a simplified and understandable vision of the APIS and describe the APIS in terms of best practices or a framework. Progress was made in this area during the workshop held at TEL34.

To strengthen cooperation with relevant international organizations, APEC has also prepared comments on the Draft Declaration of Principles and Draft Action Plan of the first phase of the World Summit on Information Society. APEC's contribution for the WSIS II meeting “From Asia Pacific Information Infrastructure to Asia Pacific Information Society: A Contribution to the World Summit on the Information Society” has also been released.

Our ongoing commitment to address new challenges and to adjust our goals to changing international and regional conditions will ensure that our organization retains its position as the pre-eminent regional organization promoting economic prosperity.

We will continue to play an active role in creating an environment conducive to the development of paperless trading and e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific region. Strong commitment and cooperation of APEC member economies and all stakeholders from both public and private sectors involved in this complex process is needed if we are to attain this goal.

Let me end by noting Chinese Taipei's contribution to the ICT sector in APEC. Chinese Taipei, as an APEC member economy, has achieved outstanding performance in the ICT industry and has been ranked 15th in the world and 4th in Asia with respect to internet availability. It is making a great contribution by providing cooperation and capacity building to assist other member economies to transform the digital divide into digital opportunities.

Through the APEC Digital Opportunity Center , Chinese Taipei is actively contributing to achieve the APEC goal of an Asia Pacific Information Society. Indeed APEC Ministers have noted the significant progress made by ADOC and have acknowledged the need for continuing APEC's work in this increasingly important area.

I commend the GBDe on its contributions to the development of e-commerce globally and in the region, and encourage you to continue active collaboration with APEC. I wish you a successful summit and thank you for the opportunity to address you.