The EC met in Moscow in February 2012. The new Chair, Mr Louis Bono from the United States, noted that there much work remains to be done in 2012 including through the work of the five Friends of the Chair groups, as well as in the areas of Ease of Doing Business (EoDB), Good Regulatory Practices (GRP), and in streamlining the work of the committee to ensure its continued effectiveness to achieving APEC objectives.

The 2012 First EC Plenary meeting was attended by all members, as well as representatives and guests from the Competition Policy and Law Group (CPLG), the CTI Chair, the SFOM Chair, ABAC, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Key discussion and decisions from the First Plenary meeting include:

• Endorsement of the five FotC groups’ work plan for 2012;
• Briefing and presentation on the Regulatory Reform – Case Studies on Green Investments;
• Discussion of the overview of economies’ ANSSR plans. The EC FotC coordinators were tasked to review the document relevant to the work areas under their scope. With relation to ANSSR, members were informed of a proposal by the United States on ANSSR workshops which was principally approved by the BMC at Session 1, 2012. Members also considered the Russian proposal on ANSSR implementation, reporting and monitoring;
• Deliberations of the outline and timeline for AEPR 2012 report on EoDB and the possible areas to be covered in the AEPR 2013 on Public Sector Governance; and
• Considered the proposal from Russia to develop a measurement framework using innovation indicators that would reflect regional cooperation in the sphere of science, technology and innovation in the APEC region.

Two policy discussions were also held. The first was on “State of the Regional Economy” and the second was on “Strengthening Implementation of Good Regulatory Practices”. For the first policy discussion, the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU) presented findings on their Economic Trends and Analysis Report which provided analysis on the recent economic performance and prospects of APEC economies. Members deliberated on the report and heard presentations and comments from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the topic. The second policy discussion was led by the United States where members agreed on a proposed survey to assist economies on identifying challenges they face in regulatory reform.

The APEC Ease of Doing Business 2012 Stocktake Workshop was also held in February 2012 in Moscow, Russia. The workshop is part of the multi-year project on EoDB to assess progress on and identify work still needed to be refined in the five priority areas. The Stocktake Workshop reviewed the ongoing progress towards achieving APEC’s aspirational target of making it 25 percent cheaper, faster and easier to do business by 2015. Participants shared best practices and lessons learned to improve future EoDB programs and discussed challenges that some economies must overcome.

As the EC works on promoting structural reform within APEC, one of its key work areas over the past few years was focused on the Leaders' Agenda to Implement Structural Reform (LAISR), given that the agenda expires at the end of 2010. The five structural reform themes of the LAISR are regarded as continuing to be relevant, though consideration has also been given to new issues that a post-LAISR agenda might cover, including issues that might arise out of an APEC Growth Strategy. It has been recognised that the EC will have an important role in addressing certain elements of the Growth Strategy, in particular those relating to balanced growth and inclusive growth. At the second EC meeting, which was held in Sendai, Japan from 19-20 September, the EC agreed to re-formulate the five LAISR areas to better reflect current circumstances and priorities. The reformulated areas, and their respective coordinators, are: regulatory reform (Japan), Competition Policy (Australia), Public Sector Governance (Chinese Taipei), EoDB (the United States) and Corporate Law and Governance (Viet Nam).

At the first Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM1) in Hiroshima, Japan, in February 2010, APEC Senior Officials assigned responsibility to the EC to monitor implementation of the EoDB Action Plan. The EoDB Friends of the Chair (FotC) within the EC would be responsible for monitoring and reviewing APEC's progress towards the EoDB Action Plan targets. Out of the five priority areas, the EC is overseeing activities in Starting a Business, Enforcing Contracts, Getting Credit, and Dealing with Permits. The Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) is overseeing the Trading Across Borders priority area.

In July 2009, the EC agreed on a process to begin evaluating member economies' institutional frameworks and processes for structural reform. A volunteer economy is being sought for the first review.

The 2010 edition of the APEC Economic Policy Report (AEPR) focuses on corporate governance, which is one of the five priority areas of the Leaders' Agenda to Implement Structural Reform (LAISR). The report was published and presented at the APEC Ministerial Meeting in November 2010.

A Stock-take report on progress made in implementing the LAISR, as well as structural reform in APEC generally has been prepared by the EC. The report draws on some of the findings in the EC Seminar on "Impacts of Structural Reform and LAISR Stocktake" mentioned above and reflects inputs from APEC member economies themselves. This report was presented to APEC Leaders in November and published as the APEC Economic Policy Report for 2011 in May 2011. It was launched during APEC’s second Senior Officials’ Meeting and APEC Ministers’ Responsible for Trade Meeting in Big Sky, Montana.

The EC met on March 2011 in Washington DC, United States. At the meeting, member economies discussed a number of issues including APEC New Strategy on Structural Reform (ANSSR) and possible contribution by the EC for a wider ANSSR framework; EoDB activities; work plans of the Friend of the Chair (FOTC) on Regulatory Reform, Competition Policy, Corporate Law and Governance, Public Sector Governance and EoDB. Two policy discussions were also held during the EC plenary in March 2011. These include policy discussions on “Regulatory Cooperation and Convergence” and “Ease of Doing Business” (EoDB).

In September, the EC held its second plenary meeting in San Francisco, California. The discussions include:

• Continued deliberations on the EC’s contributions to the APEC 2011 priorities, including ANSSR and the agenda on advancing regulatory coherence and convergence;
• Review of progress in the FOTC work plans and their prospective activities and projects;
• Deliberation on the development of the annual high-level report on the EC’s structural reform;
• Deliberation on APEC Economic Policy Report for 2012 and 2013;
• A policy discussion on “Improving Public Sector Transparency: Good Practices and Reform Experiences”; and
• A policy discussion on the ‘Interim Progress Assessment of the APEC EoDB Action Plan”.

Prior to the EC2 plenary meeting, the “Workshop on Approaches to Assessing Progress on Structural Reform” was held on 19-20 September 2011 in San Francisco, California. The workshop is the final series of ANSSR activities held earlier this year that included an earlier ANSSR Symposium conducted in Big Sky, Montana in May 2011 as well as the “Residential Workshop on Structural Reform” held in Singapore in August 2011. The San Francisco workshop brought together ANSSR focal points, academia and experts and assisted members in their selection of assessment indicators for their domestic ANSSR priorities.