 |  |
Asia-Pacific Developers Code Sustainable Agri-business Solutions
Issued by the APEC SecretariatAt a time when global food prices are on the rise in the aftermath of the worst months of the pandemic, the APEC App Challenge was held in-person for the first time in two years to address issues impacting the future of sustainable agri-food business.
This year, the challenge focused on the 2022 APEC theme, “Open, Connect, Balance”—which aims to promote long-term growth that is resilient, inclusive, balanced and sustainable. Fourteen teams of developers from APEC member economies assembled in Bangkok on Friday to participate in a 24-hour app development competition.
Their objective was to explore how technology can help farmers and potential entrepreneurs in the Asia-Pacific access knowledge on bio-circular-green (BCG) production techniques, connect with more market opportunities in the BCG economy, and access local and export markets for products that embody this vision for a green economy.
“The APEC App Challenge is a creative way to showcase, in a tangible manner, the positive role that youth and digital technology can play in addressing the region’s challenges,” said Thani Thongphakdi, Thailand’s Chair of the APEC 2022 Senior Officials. “This year’s theme of ‘Digital Solutions for Sustainable Agri-food Business’ embraces the core idea of the BCG economy to advance stronger, greener and more resilient economic growth through the use and sharing of green innovation and digital tools.”
Developer teams were encouraged to think creatively about the challenges faced by local farmers in the region, the opportunities offered by online tools and marketplaces, and the viability of developing and implementing their new product.
The ultimate goal was to come up with solutions that will support producers or potential entrepreneurs of agricultural products, from foods that have a positive effect on health beyond basic nutrition to plant-based protein or plant-based meat, and foods that have distinctive nutritional needs or organic foods.
“This is the first year the APEC App Challenge will tackle issues affecting sustainable agri-food businesses. Thailand is leading the way on this issue, and we asked software developers from across APEC to bring their best ideas to Bangkok to compete,” said John Karr, Senior Director of Digital Media and Technology Programs of The Asia Foundation, which supports the App Challenge this year, alongside APEC 2022 Thailand, the APEC Secretariat and Google.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear how much of a difference innovative digital applications can make,” said Dr Rebecca Sta Maria, Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat. “We must provide more room for digital innovation as we emerge from economic challenges. So we must build on the ideas generated here at the App Challenge.”
Each year, the competition centers around a unifying theme. From helping micro, small and medium-sized enterprise owners expand their businesses through cross-border trade to strengthening the role of women entrepreneurs in the regional economy to reviving the tourism sector by promoting a safe and trustworthy travel environment, the theme is reflected in a new mobile or web solution designed and built by young innovators from the Asia-Pacific region.
“Every year, we’re so amazed to see the creative solutions that APEC’s young developers come up with. This speaks to the tremendous talent in the region, and also bodes well for the region’s digital future,” said Michaela Browning, Vice President, Government and Public Policy for Asia-Pacific. “Digital technologies can play a helpful role in solving important global challenges and helping to foster more inclusive and sustainable growth across APEC."
PEC’s Slower Growth, Rising Inflation Pose Risk
Issued by the APEC Policy Support Unit
The APEC region’s economic growth is expected to slow down to 3.2 percent in 2022, following a 5.9 percent expansion in 2021, and will improve slightly in 2023 to 3.4 percent, according to the new economic data published by the APEC Policy Support Unit.
“Economic activity in the APEC region rebounded in 2021 due to the reopening of borders and businesses,” explained Dr Denis Hew, Director of the APEC Policy Support Unit. “However, the emergence of the Omicron variant in the second half of last year forced the reimposition of restrictions and lockdowns in some economies, slowing down economic activity.”
“Major manufacturing hubs in the region were affected by the movement restrictions towards the second half of last year. As a result, we are once again faced with congested shipping lanes and ports, shortages of workers and production inputs—these hurt growth and pose risks in the near future.” Dr Hew added.
The May 2022 issue of the APEC Regional Trends Analysis, which was launched in Bangkok on the eve of the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, highlighted global supply chain disruptions as a significant contributing factor to supply-demand imbalances that led to a broad-based increase in prices.
“Rising inflation, particularly of food and fuel prices, really cripple the standard of living and could push more people into extreme poverty,” said Rhea C. Hernando, a senior researcher with the APEC Policy Support Unit.
“Recent reports have estimated that 100 million more people have become poor in 2020 because of COVID-19; on top of that, climate change is seen to push around 68 to 132 million more people into poverty by 2030,” Hernando added “Aggravating these factors are inflation and conflicts, which could result in around 75 to 95 million more people living in extreme poverty in 2022 alone.”
The biannual report noted that inflation in APEC has doubled to an average of 3 percent in 2021, compared to 1.5 percent in 2020, and is expected to remain higher longer due to worsening supply disruptions caused by the conflict in Ukraine. The region’s inflation has sharply increased to an average of 4.5 percent in the period of January to March 2022.
“As a result of soaring inflation, monetary authorities in the APEC region have signaled their readiness to use available policy levers, such as increasing interest rates to address further inflationary pressures,” Hernando added. “As of early this month, ten APEC economies have decided to tighten their monetary policy stance by raising their benchmark rates.”
Trade activity, nonetheless, accelerated in 2021. The value of APEC’s merchandise exports and imports grew by 27 percent last year, reaching USD 11 trillion or 51 percent of total world trade.
“The ongoing pandemic remains a threat to economic recovery and stability, and we are seeing weaker growth for the APEC region,” Dr Hew stated. “APEC needs to continue to respond to this fragile recovery by strengthening trade and investment as well as supporting innovation and digitalization, as these are integral economic drivers under the Putrajaya Vision 2040.”
The report encouraged member economies to uphold their commitments to an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific through the implementation of the Aotearoa Plan of Action.
Accelerating human resource development by equipping people in the region with updated skills and knowledge, accelerating progress towards doubling the share of renewable energy by 2030, as well as exerting intensified efforts to ensure food security in the region are key to achieving APEC’s long-term goals.
“APEC is steadfast on its goal of sustainable and inclusive economic growth; however, the challenge is to translate these aspirations into concrete actions and tangible benefits for all people living in the region,” he concluded.
For more information on the APEC Regional Trends Analysis, visit this page.
APEC Pursues Full and Sustained Recovery amid Complexities
Issued by the APEC Senior Officials' Meeting
APEC senior officials are convening to pursue common ground and supportive measures amid a troubling backdrop of uncertain economic recovery, inflationary pressure and climate change complexities in the region.
Convening two days before the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, senior officials are looking at developing a multi-year work plan that covers traditional and next-generation trade and investment issues.
These outcomes will provide strong support for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and further push the agenda for its 12th Ministerial Conference that will take place during the week of 13 June in Geneva and attended by most of APEC’s Trade Ministers.
Each ministerial meeting covers mutual issues of concern, including those at the top agenda, such as WTO reform, fisheries subsidies, and environmental and fossil fuel subsidies reform. Also on the agenda is ensuring a proper response to the COVID-19 pandemic through inclusive trade for micro, small and medium enterprises as well as women’s economic access, investment facilitation, and trade in services.
“I cannot stress enough the importance of APEC and our engagement here to address the increasingly complex challenges we are facing and to ensure a full and sustained economic recovery from COVID, which is still fragile,” said Thani Thongphakdi, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Thailand and 2022 Chair of the APEC Senior Officials, as he welcomed APEC senior officials to Bangkok on Wednesday.
“To assure comprehensive recovery, there is a need for us as member economies of the most dynamic region, to drive forward our effort in deepening regional economic integration by refreshing our discussion on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, post-COVID-19.”
Reopening the region through the safe passage mechanisms is a high priority, as member economies recognized the urgent need to bring back business and leisure travel to uphold economic recovery.
“As the world gradually reopens and cross-border travel is becoming more commonplace, there are still variations in terms of entry and health measures across the region. APEC is well placed to promote interoperable solutions to facilitate the safe and seamless resumption of cross-border travel,” Thani added.
Senior officials expressed broad support to increase inclusiveness and work towards addressing climate issues. Under the guiding theme of APEC 2022, “Open. Connect. Balance.”, members explored approaches such as the bio-circular-green (BCG) economy model that calls for more holistic and coordinated efforts in shifting mindsets and actions to address imbalances and inequalities in and across economies.
“The present economic challenges need intense efforts of APEC to alleviate the negative impacts on our economy and people. More so, we need to strengthen APEC’s preparedness and resilience against future disruptions,” Thani said.
He added that members’ intensified efforts are needed to alleviate the impact of current economic pressures and that APEC as a forum should deliver “decisive and deliberate actions responding to the evolving global environment so that our stakeholders and people can thrive.”
APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade will meet on Saturday and Sunday in Bangkok.
Time to expand the APEC List of Environmental Goods
By Carlos Kuriyama
In 2012, APEC Leaders endorsed a groundbreaking initiative for green trade policy cooperation — a commitment to reduce applied tariff rates on a list of 54 environmental goods to 5 percent or less by the end of 2015. The intent was to promote the use of environmental technologies and contribute to green growth.
It has since been one of APEC’s flagship initiatives and compelling evidence of the forum as a place of innovation and a test kitchen of ideas to improve multilateral cooperation.
However, this was nearly a decade ago; much has happened since then, and especially in the past year. With a view to APEC’s focus on sustainability, it is time to consider the evolution of the trade in environmental goods, analyze the main barriers affecting their trade, and evaluate how far environmental policy has come.
Since endorsement, APEC has intensified its trade in a significant majority of the products belonging to this list. In APEC economies, the largest increase of exports and imports involved components for recycling systems and products used to manage solid and hazardous waste, for environmental monitoring analysis, as well as the aforementioned solar photovoltaic cells.
However, there were some products in the list that experienced a decline in their trade as they became obsolete or less cost-efficient. Between 2012 and 2019, for example, the most significant fall in both imports and exports were seen by solar heliostats — the reflective device associated with concentrated solar power. Compare this with an increase in trade of solar photovoltaic cells, a different solar power technology was more attractive to investors due to its relatively low cost. Other products with falling exports include electric generating sets; steam turbine parts; and crushing, grinding and waste compactor machines for solid waste treatment.
The surge of trade in environmental goods may be attributed to several reasons. Tariff reductions, to which APEC’s work has contributed, have made green technologies more affordable and available. Environmental awareness and activism have steadily grown in popularity, especially in recent years, and there is a general trend to develop and use fewer polluting technologies as well as more environmentally friendly products. This has led to governments mandating more regulation to protect the environment, the implementation of which requires the use of environmental goods. Furthermore, there’s the expeditious technological progress in developing alternative energy sources and energy-efficient goods — governments have helped move this along with environmental policy-driven incentives and other supporting measures. Finally, high international oil prices have motivated the development of new energy-efficient products and new technologies to replace fossil fuels.
The current most favored nation (MFN) average tariff for the products in the APEC List of Enviromental Goods is below 5 percent for all but one APEC economy.
Trade in environmental goods is also affected by non-tariff measures (NTMs), both technical and non-technical. Technical NTMs refer to the characteristics of a product, its technical specifications, and its production process while non-technical NTMs are not related to product-specific properties, but to trade requirements. For example, a local content requirement demanding that all solar panel systems only use solar inverters produced locally could affect trade of solar inverters and increase the cost of local solar panel systems.
Green growth and sustainable development are multidimensional — there are several factors that are needed to achieve them. For one, improving access conditions for a greater number of environmental goods and services will certainly generate better and more tangible green growth. In addition, a myriad of studies shows that international trade could improve the environmental quality of an economy by allowing lower-cost access to the technologies to improve environmental conditions and promote competition to spur the development of environmental goods and services.
The products in the APEC List support several activities related to environmental protection and resource management. Expanding it will greatly help the region cope with the environmental challenges that have truly entered the mainstream consciousness in recent years, especially climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Any discussion to expand the list should keep in mind certain considerations, such as how it would benefit APEC members economically, especially developing economies, which often bear the brunt of the ill effects of climate change. One possible way to go about it is to add in the list less technology-intensive products which are already part of complex global value chains of environmental goods and are manufactured in developing economies.
In addition, APEC economies should contemplate the inclusion of adapted goods — goods that have been specifically modified to be more “environmentally friendly” or “cleaner” and whose use is therefore beneficial for environmental protection or resource management.
Discussions which will be held over the course of 2022, guided by Thailand’s focus on sustainability and the bio-circular-green economy, will be essential, not just in expanding the list, but in planning the region’s collective agenda for a decade that is crucial for our environmental future.
Carlos Kuriyama is a senior analyst at the APEC Policy Support Unit and the author of the policy brief, “A Review of the APEC List of Environmental Goods,” on which this article was based. To read more about this topic, download the paper.
For further details, please contact:
Masyitha Baziad +65 9751 2146 at mb@apec.org
Michael Chapnick +65 9647 4847 at mc@apec.org
