Small and Medium Enterprises Policy Level Group Meeting

Excellency Engineer Juan Carlos Hurtado
Minister of Industry, Tourism, Integration and Negotiations of Peru

Excellency Dr. Agnes Franco
Vice Minister of Industry

Mr. Lim Jock Hoi
Chairman, SME Policy Level Group

At the outset, allow me to thank our host, the government and people of Peru for their hospitality and warm welcome extended to me and my colleagues from APEC Secretariat.

Our sincere appreciation to the organizer for excellent arrangements and this opportunity to speak and participate in this meeting preparing for APEC SME Ministerial Meeting.

Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Last year, APEC Leaders Meeting in Auckland produced a robust set of outcomes and a strong political statement in support of the WTO. The failure of Seattle WTO Ministerial Meeting inevitably added increasing expectation on what APEC could do to revive and strengthen the multilateral trading system. The First Senior Official Meeting concluded just a while ago in Bandar Seri Begawan provided an opportunity to assess that Seattle outcomes and future role of APEC.

It can be seen that the future role of APEC in two dimensions.

In the view of the difficulties faced by the WTO, APEC should remain, as last year's robust outcomes indicate, as a dynamic process with continuing relevance.

Brunei Darussalam's theme this year as host - delivering to the community - embodied the importance of developing more open markets as well as investing in the people and businesses which operate in those markets; aimed to catalyze the advancement of technology as well as taking APEC closer to the new opportunities brought by technology; and aimed to show that while much of APEC works is investing in the future, APEC has a valuable selection of 'products' which are of relevance to the wider community in their daily lives. The theme was well supported by Senior Officials.

To be more specific, this year's priorities building upon those Auckland's outcomes include:

APEC should matter more to its community. This year, under chairmanship of Brunei Darussalam, APEC is keen to deliver to its community through implementation. Thus, APEC fora have an important role to play. The theme, the tasking statements detailing works approved by Leaders/Ministers last year and the decisions of the First Senior Official Meeting have provided the policy directions on what we hope to achieve this year.

One of the three Brunei Darussalam's three sub-themes is in fact building stronger foundations. Various measures to facilitate/help business grow in confidence will be addressed. Individual Action Plans will be improved to make them more useful as business tools. Peer reviews will made more focused and manageable. Various facilitation measures in promoting regional trade and investment and a number of activities to progress work on strengthening markets are these year's major undertakings.

Last year, APEC Economic Leaders welcomed the outcomes of the Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meeting and emphasized that improved competitive environment is beneficial to SME - one of the priorities of this year?s host. To boost confidence of business in the post Asian Financial crisis, Senior Officials have directed that works on strengthening of markets should include the development of a program to assist economies in implementing APEC Principles to Enhance Competition and Regulatory Reform to enhance competitiveness.

APEC should remain relevant in the wake of the rapid development of information and communication technology. Creating New Opportunities to take advantage of these developments and the promising potentials of electronic commerce is in fact the second of the three Brunei Darussalam's sub-themes.

We are seeing increasing digital divide even in our own community as we are ushered into the new millennium. As technologies rapidly develop, our capacity has not been in tandem with those developments. APEC is fully aware of this and intends to address it through our economic and technical cooperation. A proposal by the United States on "building the Foundations of the New Economy" fitted well with this year's theme. It was viewed that capacity building would play an essential role in preparing economies to be better able to reap the potential benefits offered by technologies and the increasing importance of knowledge-based economy.

The HRD Ministerial Meeting in Washington last year welcomed the recommendations of the SME Ministers to promote effective human resources development through education-business linkages to support knowledge-based economies; develop the capabilities of the current pool of SME managers; facilitate the transfer of skills between economies; and develop skills for entrepreneurs and consumers to enhance consumer protection and confidence.

Ministers have accorded high priority to further work on the social impact of the financial crisis and encouraged greater coordination of activities among APEC fora. They also endorsed the call to intensify work on issues of relevance to SMEs particularly the development of processes for the mutual recognition of professional skills across the region.

APEC should provide coherence and community relevance to its now wide-ranging APEC agenda. In short, various activities involving youth and women are being planned throughout the year. In conjunction of SME Ministerial meeting, Business Forum, E-Trade and Women Leaders Business Meetings are going to be held in June this year.

APEC is keen to see that its process benefits regional travellers and some issues being taken up such as APEC food system, biotechnology and tourism are of high value to the community.

APEC should reach out.

For a ten-year old organization and given the diversity of its members, the consensus seeking process it adopts and the bitter economic situation most of its members faced in the last three years or so, APEC can be considered doing very well compared to its peers. Its trade facilitation activities are progressing very well, indeed. As I said earlier, some concrete outcomes are being worked out as APEC deliverables in November this year.

To ensure that APEC has substance and relevance in the difficulties face by the multilateral trading system, APEC intends to enhance its outreach activities to its own community. APEC will continue to support and contribute to the WTO process. The Trade Ministerial Meeting in June in Darwin and the Leaders Meeting in November in Brunei Darussalam will provide good opportunity to reiterate APEC?s political support for the WTO. APEC would seek to enhance its image and address concern of globalization by publicizing clearly its track record on how it has contributed to trade and investment liberalization and capacity building. As a first step to better communicate APEC's work, Secretariat will be re-developing its website to provide easier access to information for business and for the wider community.

APEC's feature that distinguishes it apart from the other regional organizations is the strong business participation. APEC means business. Leaders and Ministers called for further dialogue with private sector at all levels. SME Ministerial Meeting last year set the best example on the positive interactions between business and officials. This excellent practice, I believe, will be followed at the SME Ministerial/Business Forum scheduled in June this year. APEC' intends to further strengthen its business-outreach through publications and new window and improved window for business on APEC web site. Australia is spearheading this activity.

To conclude, APEC Secretariat has tabled a report on activities on Small and Medium Enterprises in APEC committees/fora and Working Groups for the consideration of the Meeting. Secretariat, through Siti Nugraha, is here to provide the Meeting with substantive support and contribute in whatever capacity available to ensure this Meeting and the coming Small and Medium Enterprise Ministerial Meeting in June a success. I once again sincerely thank the government of Peru and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the warm hospitality extended to make our stay a memorable one.