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Paper Trail Holds Back Digital Trade Processes as APEC, ABAC Push Practical Fixes
Issued by the APEC Committee on Trade and InvestmentDalian, People's Republic of China, 1 September 2026APEC economies and business are advancing a joint initiative to make electronic trade documents work across borders, tackling legal, technical and capacity barriers that continue to keep much of global trade reliant on paper.
Around four billion paper documents still circulate through global trade each year, with less than one percent fully digitalized. Even where trade documents have gone electronic, different legal frameworks, technical standards and digital systems can prevent them from being recognized or exchanged across borders.
This challenge was discussed at a dialogue held in Dalian last week by the APEC Centre of Excellence for Paperless Trade (ACCEPT). Endorsed last year, ACCEPT, is a collaborative initiative between APEC economies and the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) to help close these gaps and accelerate the practical adoption of paperless trade.
“We want to reduce the cost and friction of moving goods across borders, yet for many businesses, trade unfortunately remains far more paper based,” said Kok Ping Soon, ABAC Singapore member and Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
“Legal frameworks differ across jurisdictions and systems do not always connect seamlessly with one another,” Kok added. “As a result, the result is familiar to many of us: delays, duplicated processes, higher compliance costs and uncertainty.”
SBF, through its Centre for the Future of Trade and Investment, hosts the ACCEPT Secretariat and provides administrative, logistical and program support for its work. Its initial work focuses on four documents at the heart of many trade transactions, such as electronic bills of lading, certificates of origin, invoices and customs bonds.
The scale of the opportunity is significant. Ocean carriers issue around 45 million bills of lading each year, with about 95 percent still not electronic, while hundreds of billions of business-to-business invoices continue to be processed in non-electronic form globally. Research presented at the dialogue shows that the bigger challenge increasingly emerges when documents have to move between economies.
“Paperless trade will only deliver its full benefits when electronic documents can move across borders as reliably as the goods they support,” said Julio Chan, Chair of the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment.
“ACCEPT gives APEC economies and businesses a practical way to address the gaps that still stand in the way, from legal recognition and common standards to interoperability, and ultimately make cross-border trade easier, faster and more efficient.”
A key part of ACCEPT’s work is to move from policy into practice through pilot programs that test electronic trade documents in real-world transactions and identify where legal, technical and operational barriers remain. Progress on paperless trade will require the involvement of a vast number of stakeholders across the supply chain and ACCEPT brings governments and businesses together in this regard.
The dialogue brought together over 40 participants from 14 APEC economies, businesses and international organizations to discuss the practical next steps needed to advance cross-border paperless trade.
In her closing remarks at the dialogue, Denise Pereira, Director of the International Trade Division at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, said pilot programs can help test what works in actual cross-border transactions and identify where processes break down.
“The vision should be for successful pilots to provide a pathway towards regular commercial use,” Pereira said. “Businesses and governments will need to build on initial adoption to embed electronic trade documents into day-to-day trade processes and allow the scaling of solutions for mass adoption by businesses.”
For businesses, particularly smaller firms with fewer resources to navigate different systems and requirements, making electronic trade documents work across borders could mean less paperwork, lower compliance costs and fewer delays moving goods.
ACCEPT welcomes participation from both public and private stakeholders for a meaningful collective endeavour and valuable objectives. ACCEPT’s progress will be reported annually to APEC economies and ABAC.
APEC economies and business are advancing a joint initiative to make electronic trade documents work across borders, tackling legal, technical and capacity barriers that continue to keep much of global trade reliant on paper.
Around four billion paper documents still circulate through global trade each year, with less than one percent fully digitalized. Even where trade documents have gone electronic, different legal frameworks, technical standards and digital systems can prevent them from being recognized or exchanged across borders.
This challenge was discussed at a dialogue held in Dalian last week by the APEC Centre of Excellence for Paperless Trade (ACCEPT). Endorsed last year, ACCEPT, is a collaborative initiative between APEC economies and the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) to help close these gaps and accelerate the practical adoption of paperless trade.
“We want to reduce the cost and friction of moving goods across borders, yet for many businesses, trade unfortunately remains far more paper based,” said Kok Ping Soon, ABAC Singapore member and Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
“Legal frameworks differ across jurisdictions and systems do not always connect seamlessly with one another,” Kok added. “As a result, the result is familiar to many of us: delays, duplicated processes, higher compliance costs and uncertainty.”
SBF, through its Centre for the Future of Trade and Investment, hosts the ACCEPT Secretariat and provides administrative, logistical and program support for its work. Its initial work focuses on four documents at the heart of many trade transactions, such as electronic bills of lading, certificates of origin, invoices and customs bonds.
The scale of the opportunity is significant. Ocean carriers issue around 45 million bills of lading each year, with about 95 percent still not electronic, while hundreds of billions of business-to-business invoices continue to be processed in non-electronic form globally. Research presented at the dialogue shows that the bigger challenge increasingly emerges when documents have to move between economies.
“Paperless trade will only deliver its full benefits when electronic documents can move across borders as reliably as the goods they support,” said Julio Chan, Chair of the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment.
“ACCEPT gives APEC economies and businesses a practical way to address the gaps that still stand in the way, from legal recognition and common standards to interoperability, and ultimately make cross-border trade easier, faster and more efficient.”
A key part of ACCEPT’s work is to move from policy into practice through pilot programs that test electronic trade documents in real-world transactions and identify where legal, technical and operational barriers remain. Progress on paperless trade will require the involvement of a vast number of stakeholders across the supply chain and ACCEPT brings governments and businesses together in this regard.
The dialogue brought together over 40 participants from 14 APEC economies, businesses and international organizations to discuss the practical next steps needed to advance cross-border paperless trade.
In her closing remarks at the dialogue, Denise Pereira, Director of the International Trade Division at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, said pilot programs can help test what works in actual cross-border transactions and identify where processes break down.
“The vision should be for successful pilots to provide a pathway towards regular commercial use,” Pereira said. “Businesses and governments will need to build on initial adoption to embed electronic trade documents into day-to-day trade processes and allow the scaling of solutions for mass adoption by businesses.”
For businesses, particularly smaller firms with fewer resources to navigate different systems and requirements, making electronic trade documents work across borders could mean less paperwork, lower compliance costs and fewer delays moving goods.
ACCEPT welcomes participation from both public and private stakeholders for a meaningful collective endeavour and valuable objectives. ACCEPT’s progress will be reported annually to APEC economies and ABAC.
AI Tool Transforming Genomic Analysis Wins 2026 ASPIRE Prize
Issued by the APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and InnovationScientist behind an artificial intelligence (AI) software that turns raw and scrambled DNA data into fast and accurate medical genetic diagnoses has won this year’s APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE).
Buried within more than three billion letters of a person's genetic code are a handful of variants that reveal disease risk and finding them has long been slow and expensive.
Dr Ruibang Luo, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong, has made an AI tool that can facilitate easier, quick and accurate identify highly sensitive and varied genomes for analysis, becoming a global standard used in healthcare and food security.
The AI tool has made highly sensitive and varied genomic data analysis, vital to healthcare and food security, faster, more accurate and cost-efficient, becoming a global standard.
“The algorithms developed by my lab are now being integrated into clinical decision-support systems that can help detect early-stage cancer and rare diseases in newborns. For me, that is what innovation is about; turning research into tools that can help save lives,” said Dr Ruibang Luo.
His AI tool has been downloaded more than ten million times, 60 percent of which were from other APEC economies, and is being used in disease prevention, precision medicine, as well as agricultural and medical biotechnologies.
"The ASPIRE prize represents not only excellence in science and technology, but also APEC’s collective aspiration to address global challenges through collaboration and forward-looking leadership,” said Dr Hwanil Park, Chair of the APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation.
“This year, the award recognizes outstanding contributions that harness AI and data science to strengthen industries and build resilient economies for the future,” Dr Park added.
The winner of the prize will receive USD25,000 supported by the National Center for APEC (NCAPEC) Foundation, Lam Research and Google. The winner was announced during a ceremony on the sidelines of the Third APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting in Dalian.
“AI is transforming the scientific industry across our economies. The discoveries of today will become the solutions of tomorrow to treat diseases, secure agriculture and modern resources and manage environmental impacts,” said Alex Parle, Chair of the NCAPEC Foundation.
“Programs like ASPIRE reflect the spirit of APEC, bringing people together to advance knowledge, innovation and shared prosperity,” Parle added.
Each year, APEC's 21 member economies nominate one early-career scientist for ASPIRE, with a single winner chosen by regional vote. The prize is designed to reward researchers who inspire deeper scientific cooperation across the APEC region.
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This news release can also be viewed on the APEC website: https://www.apec.org/press/
Economies Tackle New Risks as Transport Systems Grow More Connected
Issued by the APEC Transportation Working GroupConvening in Dalian last week, the APEC Transportation Working Group accelerated efforts to integrate new digital innovations into rail, road, air and sea transport, with a focus on safer and more seamless travel.
“As transport systems become more connected, a single point of failure, a cyberattack, a data gap, a technical fault, can now disrupt an entire journey rather than one part of it causing congestion, delayed goods and physical hazards," said Baesung Kim, Lead Shepherd of the Transportation Working Group.
"That is why our economies need a better understanding of the risks, built through collective research on how to safely adopt new transport technology."
Economies described how artificial intelligence (AI) in road transport including airports’ driverless cargo systems to AI-enabled traffic cameras that detect fires, falls, obstacles and accidents for faster emergency response, is now widely adopted, improving convenience and safety.
With railway lines running through some of the region's most difficult terrain, discussions also highlighted the use of drones and generative AI to inspect track conditions, bridges and landslide risk, quickly spotting damage without putting workers in harm's way.
As discussions turned to sea travel, policymakers noted that maritime shipping forms the backbone of the region's trade, moving more than 80 percent of its goods. Economies said digital platforms are reshaping logistics by allowing ports and shipping lines share data in real time, helping cut delays, lower costs and get goods to consumers faster.
Delegates also shared new innovations for air travel such as electric aircraft that take off and land vertically without a runway that could open new air routes to smaller cities and communities without major airport, potentially expanding access to regional travel.
With increased integration and adoption of AI and data across modes of transport, discussions stressed how these technologies bring shared risks and lessons on cybersecurity, data privacy, infrastructure and energy.
Experts warned with such connectedness, safe and reliable technologies must be monitored with interoperable standards to prevent disruptions that may cause problems across whole supply chains.
To address these cross-cutting challenges, APEC economies launched the new Expert Group on Transportation Research (EGTR), bringing together expertise across rail, road, air and sea transport.
The group will examine shared challenges and emerging trends, while translating research into practical pilot projects that can be tested and applied across the region.
"APEC already has a strong knowledge base in transportation. The real question is how we connect that expertise across economies and modes, so good ideas developed in one can be adapted and used in another, strengthening the connection of our region’s trade and people," said Ngyuyen Thi Phuong Hien, Chair of the expert group.
Following this discussion, transportation ministers from across APEC will convene in Beijing on 21-22 September to address the challenge of ensuring that transport systems are interconnected while ensuring its safety and accessibility.
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Senior Officials Push for Practical Outcomes as Economic Pressures Mount
Issued by the APEC Senior Officials’ MeetingAPEC senior officials concluded two days of deliberations in Dalian on Friday, advancing regional economic cooperation as trade uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change reshape the outlook for the Asia-Pacific.
“As an anchor of global stability and an engine of growth, the Asia-Pacific shoulders greater responsibilities,” said China’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu in his opening remarks.
China, the 2026 APEC host economy, has proposed several deliverables, including a standalone outcome on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), as well as outcomes on connectivity, artificial intelligence and the digital economy.
“We should uphold the APEC spirit and make full use of the Senior Officials’ Meeting’s coordinating role,” Deputy Minister Ma said. “Through friendly consultation, we should seek common ground while respecting differences and accelerate consultations on the relevant agenda items.”
Business representatives meanwhile pressed APEC to translate regional economic cooperation into measures that reduce barriers and make it easier for companies to operate across borders.
“We have heard strong calls from the business sector to reinforce openness, including through advancing early deliverables towards the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, strengthening regional connectivity and fostering closer public-private cooperation,” said APEC 2026 Senior Officials’ Meeting Chair Ambassador Chen Xu
The APEC Business Advisory Council’s recommendations include accelerating paperless trade and interoperability, strengthening supply chain cooperation and improving access to digital infrastructure and skills. It also called for responsible, innovation-friendly approaches to artificial intelligence, particularly to broaden participation by small businesses and developing economies in the digital economy.
Senior officials also examined how APEC’s long-term agenda can keep pace with a changing regional economy through the first five-year review of the Aotearoa Plan of Action, which guides implementation of the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040.
The review is considering how APEC’s collective actions can better address artificial intelligence, demographic change, the energy transition and cybersecurity, while continuing work on supply chain resilience, digital trade, connectivity and capacity building.
The deliberations were informed by the latest APEC Regional Trends Analysis, which forecasts regional growth of 3.2 percent in 2026, supported by technology-related trade and investment even as higher energy costs, geopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty weigh on the outlook.
APEC Secretariat Executive Director Eduardo Pedrosa said the next stage of work must focus on translating APEC cooperation into tangible economic impact.
“APEC is at its best when cooperation translates into practical improvements in how our economies connect, trade and respond to change,” Pedrosa concluded. “The work advanced in Dalian, from connectivity and digital transformation to stronger supply chains, must now translate into outcomes that make the region more competitive, resilient and better prepared for the changes ahead.”
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APEC Grows Amid a Complex Global Landscape as Economic Engines Shift
Rhea Crisologo Hernando, Eldo Simanjuntak and Carlos KuriyamaThe APEC region continues to expand despite a more challenging global environment. Strong macroeconomic fundamentals, technology-powered trade, and agile policy responses are helping economies navigate heightened geopolitical tensions. However, the outlook is becoming more complex as higher energy prices, weather-related disruptions, rising freight costs, geopolitical tensions and persistent trade policy uncertainty increasingly weigh on growth.
Growth remains resilient amid challenges
Despite heightened global uncertainty, APEC is expected to continue to grow by 3.2 percent in 2026 and 3.0 percent in 2027, although slightly lower than the 3.3 percent expansion in 2025. These forecasts are largely unchanged from the May edition of the APEC Regional Trends Analysis (ARTA), suggesting that the underlying economic fundamentals have remained broadly stable. While the near-term outlook shows a modest slowdown, the headline numbers mask important shifts.
Growth is increasingly supported by technology-related trade, digital services and investment in these sectors, even as traditional sources of momentum face greater constraints. This resilience also reflects strong macroeconomic fundamentals and economies’ ability to respond to changing conditions through policy measures.
Supply chain constraints and trade policy uncertainty have eased recently, providing some relief to businesses. Yet vulnerabilities, including trade-restrictive measures, remain and continue to weigh on the outlook.
Ongoing geopolitical tensions have contributed to higher energy prices, raising production and transportation costs. These pressures are feeding into international logistics, resulting in increased freight costs across intra-Asia and extra-Asia routes. Even when physical disruptions ease, higher fuel, insurance and shipping costs can continue to affect the movement of goods and raise costs throughout supply chains. At the same time, warmer-than-normal conditions associated with El Niño could affect agricultural output, putting upward pressure on food prices.
Together, these pressures could create a more difficult environment for businesses and consumers. Higher energy, food and transportation costs can squeeze household purchasing power, raise business costs and make investment decisions more uncertain. If sustained, they could dampen consumption and investment, slowing down economic activity.
Inflation is Likely to Rise Before Easing
Price pressures are expected to translate into higher average inflation in APEC, from 2.4 percent in 2025 to 2.9 percent in 2026, before moderating to 2.5 percent in 2027.
The projected rise highlights the risk of a less favourable combination of slower growth and renewed inflationary pressures. Higher energy costs can feed directly into fuel prices and indirectly into the cost of producing and transporting goods. Weather-related disruptions could aggravate the situation, reducing agricultural production and raising food prices.
The expected easing in 2027, however, suggests that some of these pressures may prove temporary. Policymakers will therefore need to balance price stability with support for economic activity, particularly if growth momentum weakens.
Trade and Digital Services Support Regional Growth
Trade remains one of the brighter spots in the region. The expansion recorded in 2025 continued into early 2026, driven mainly by technology products. During the first quarter of 2026, merchandise exports and imports recorded double-digit growth compared to year-ago levels. The value of goods exports increased by 18.8 percent, while export volumes rose by 10.8 percent. Import values increased by 10.2 percent, while import volumes rose by 11.1 percent.
The robust trade performance points to strong underlying demand for goods, particularly those linked to technology and digitalization. Technology investment has become an important engine of regional growth, supporting demand for electronics and other technology-related products.
This strength provides a vital source of momentum, although it also highlights a potential vulnerability. When growth becomes increasingly concentrated in specific sectors, it raises exposure to changes in technology demand and investment cycles. For instance, it remains uncertain whether the massive investments in AI will deliver the expected returns. At the same time, geo-economic developments and trade policy uncertainty could cloud the outlook for technology-driven trade.
Meanwhile, the services sector continues to contribute to regional growth, particularly through the sustained expansion of digitally delivered services. Latest data for 2025 shows exports and imports of digitally delivered services reached USD1.8 trillion and USD1.5 trillion, respectively, equivalent to around 70-75 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels. This upsurge creates new opportunities for productivity and growth as digital services enable businesses to participate more fully in regional and global markets. Realizing these opportunities will depend on continued investment in digital infrastructure, connectivity and technology adoption.
Overall commercial services trade, however, grew at a slower pace in the first quarter of 2026 as gains in travel, transport and goods-related services have moderated from previous years. Commercial services exports grew by 5.4 percent growth and imports by 6.9 percent, compared with 7.5 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively, a year ago.
Trade imbalances also persist across economies, pointing to deeper structural differences in production, competitiveness and domestic demand. Addressing these imbalances requires policies that promote more balanced and resilient growth rather than relying solely on short-term adjustments.
Investment is Shifting Toward Strategic Sectors
The investment landscape provides another indication of how the regional economy is changing.
Foreign direct investment remains broadly stable, while greenfield investment is growing. Importantly, greenfield investment is becoming more concentrated in digital services, including information and communication services, as well as electronics and energy. Together, these sectors accounted for 57.6 percent of global greenfield investments in 2025, nearly 10 percentage points higher than five years ago.
This concentration reflects the structural transformation underway in APEC economies.
Digitalization is creating demand for new infrastructure and services, while the energy sector is receiving greater attention amid changing energy needs and security considerations. Electronics, meanwhile, remain central to technology-driven production and trade. This shift could support sustained growth if accompanied by improvements in skills, infrastructure, connectivity and the broader investment environment.
Extreme Weather Adds to Economic Uncertainty
Risks to the economic outlook extend beyond trade policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.
Weather conditions are increasingly shaping economic performance as extreme weather events can trigger considerable negative effects on agriculture output and food prices.
The region is expected to experience an intensifying El Niño this year, with drought, heat stress and flooding potentially dampening agricultural production. So far, supplies of key agricultural products are seen to remain broadly adequate. However, there is an observed tightening in supplies of milled rice, oilseeds and vegetable oils, which could heighten risks to food security and exert upward pressure on food prices.
For economies where food represents a significant share of household spending, these developments can have important implications. Lower agricultural output can raise food prices, deplete real household incomes and increase pressure on vulnerable households. Weather-related disruptions can also affect trade flows as changes in domestic production occur. These potential scenarios highlight how weather-related shocks can spill over into the broader economy through food prices, trade and household purchasing power.
Bolstering Resilience for the Next Phase of Growth
The near-term outlook points to a regional economy that shows resilience but faces increasingly interconnected risks. Four policy priorities can help bolster economic resilience:
Accelerate digital transformation. Expanding digital infrastructure and connectivity while promoting technology adoption can help economies capture productivity gains and broaden participation in the digital economy.
Deepen supply chain resilience. Greater trade integration, open and rules-based trade, and the use of digital platforms can improve supply chain efficiency and reduce vulnerabilities.
Strengthen food security and agricultural adaptation. Investment in resilient agriculture and early warning systems, coupled with reinforced regional cooperation on disaster risk management, can help economies prepare for weather-related disruptions.
Mobilize regional investment for growth. Improving the investment environment, developing productive sectors and strengthening regional policy dialogue can support investment and longer-term productivity.
Looking Ahead
APEC faces an increasingly complex global economic and policy landscape. Growth is supported by strong trade, technology investment and digitalization, while generally stable macroeconomic fundamentals provide an important buffer against external shocks.
Yet the risks are becoming more interconnected. Geopolitical tensions can raise energy and freight costs, weather-related shocks can affect food production and inflation, and trade policy uncertainty can amplify supply chain vulnerabilities. These pressures make it critical for economies to strengthen their capacity to absorb shocks while continuing to pursue productivity-enhancing investment.
Beyond sustaining growth, APEC needs to harness digital transformation and other current sources of resilience to build a more diversified, connected and stable economy over the long term. Achieving this will require stronger regional cooperation, continued investment in infrastructure and skills, and policies that support broad-based growth and strengthen the region’s capacity to navigate future shocks.
Rhea Crisologo Hernando is analyst, Eldo Simanjuntak is researcher and Carlos Kuriyama is director at the APEC Policy Support Unit.
For more on this topic, download the latest APEC Regional Trends Analysis report.
Behind Every Click, Call and Delivery: Making Services Trade Work
By Andre WirjoMost people think of international trade as ships carrying containers across oceans or trucks crossing borders. Increasingly, however, trade is something you cannot put inside a box.
It is an architect designing a building in another economy. A software developer providing cybersecurity services halfway around the world. A university delivering online education across borders. A logistics company coordinating complex global supply chains. A small business accepting digital payments from overseas customers.
Together, these activities make up trade in services, one of the fastest-growing and most important parts of the global economy.
Yet while services now account for nearly two-thirds of economic output across the APEC region, making it easier to trade services across borders remains surprisingly challenging. Unlike goods, where barriers are often at the border in the form of tariffs or customs procedures, the biggest obstacles to services trade are frequently found in domestic regulations, licensing systems, professional qualification requirements and data governance frameworks.
Removing these barriers rarely makes headlines. It also happens to be some of the hardest policy work governments undertake.
That is why, just months after APEC trade ministers endorsed the APEC Roadmap for Innovative, Competitive and Resilient Services, officials gathering in Dalian are already focused on the next steps, not what the roadmap says, but how to make it work. Because a roadmap is as good as the journey it enables.
The Invisible Barriers to Services Trade
Services have become the backbone of modern economies. In most APEC economies, services provide jobs for more than half of the working-age population. Besides being directly traded across borders, they are also increasingly embedded in the value of goods.
Yet improving cross-border trade in services is often not straightforward. An engineer, accountant or healthcare provider may encounter various challenges. Professional qualifications may not be recognized. Licensing requirements may differ. Regulations affecting cross-border data flows may vary significantly between economies.
These barriers are often less visible, but they can be just as significant. Addressing them requires more than negotiating market access. It often involves improving domestic regulations, strengthening institutions and building greater trust and cooperation among economies.
From Roadmap to Results
APEC has been working to strengthen the region’s services sector for more than a decade.
The APEC Services Competitiveness Roadmap, endorsed in 2016, helped elevate services as a regional policy priority. It led to important achievements, including the development of the APEC Services Index to assess the regulatory environment affecting services trade, the adoption of principles on domestic regulation and stronger cooperation in areas such as education and environmental services.
But economies also recognized that the services landscape has changed dramatically over the past ten years. Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping business models. Digital services continue to expand rapidly. New technologies are changing how professionals collaborate across borders, while businesses increasingly rely on cross-border data flows and digital infrastructure.
Recognizing these changes, APEC trade ministers endorsed a new roadmap in May this year, intended to further reduce barriers to services trade, drive economic growth and fuel job creation.
Now comes the difficult task. An implementation plan may sound technical, but it is where policy ambitions are either translated into concrete action or left on paper. The challenge is not simply identifying priorities. It is deciding what activities should be pursued, how economies can work together, which reforms should be undertaken domestically, and how progress should be measured over time.
Turning Ambition into Action
For the new roadmap to succeed, implementation needs to be practical, measurable and flexible. That begins with translating broad priorities into meaningful activities. Studies, policy dialogues, capacity-building initiatives and information sharing all have a role to play, but they need to contribute to clearly defined objectives.
Progress also needs to be measured thoughtfully. Good implementation is not only about having more meetings or producing more reports. It is also about what changes on the ground: whether reforms are making it easier for businesses to provide services across borders, whether regulatory environments are improving and whether workers and consumers are benefiting from better access to services.
Better indicators will be essential to answering these questions. The APEC Services Index already provides valuable insights into services regulations across participating economies, but there is scope to expand its coverage to emerging sectors, including digital services. Strengthening services-related statistics more broadly will also help economies identify trends, evaluate reforms and make more informed policy decisions.
Implementation also requires recognizing that services policy does not belong to a single government agency. Facilitating cross-border digital services may involve trade ministries, telecommunications regulators, competition authorities, privacy agencies, immigration officials and professional regulators. Strengthening services competitiveness therefore depends as much on coordination within governments as on cooperation between them.
Businesses, too, have an important role to play. They experience firsthand how regulations affect investment decisions, innovation and day-to-day operations. Their perspectives can help policymakers identify barriers that may not be apparent from legislation or statistics alone.
Finally, the implementation plan itself should remain adaptable. One of the strengths of APEC’s previous roadmap was its ability to evolve as new priorities emerged. Few anticipated in 2016 how rapidly AI, digital platforms and new forms of cross-border services would transform economies. The next implementation plan should retain that same flexibility, allowing APEC to respond to future technologies, business models and policy challenges that cannot yet be fully anticipated.
A roadmap should not be treated as a fixed destination. It should be a living document that evolves alongside the economies it seeks to support.
Progress will not happen overnight. It will depend on the quieter work of implementation. It is painstaking work, but it is also among the most consequential. If services increasingly shape how our economies grow, innovate and connect, then getting services policy right is no longer merely a technical exercise. It is central to the future of trade itself.
APEC Food Security Ministers Issue Joint Statement
Issued by the 11th APEC Food Security Ministerial MeetingAPEC ministers responsible for food security issued a joint statement upon the conclusion of the 11th APEC Food Security Ministerial Meeting in Hangzhou on Monday chaired by Zhang Zhu, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China.
The statement reflected consensus outcomes as ministers encourage economies to strengthen rural infrastructure, promote agri-food sector development and improve public services in rural areas.
Supporting innovation within the sector including artificial intelligence and agricultural biotechnology, ministers welcomed the Principles for Strengthening Food Systems Resilience in the APEC Region through Innovation and Digitalization.
Ministers also recognized the key role of fisheries and aquaculture in supporting food security, providing high-quality nutrition, creating jobs for regional communities and increasing supply for fish and aquatic products.
Read the 2026 Joint Statement on the 11th APEC Food Security Ministerial Meeting
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This news release can also be viewed on the APEC website: https://www.apec.org/press/
